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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/tenlecturesonortOOhall_ 0 


TEN LECTURES 


ORTHODOXY AND HERESY 


Nec Eek, 


CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 


BY 


EDWARD Rees. 


PRIVATELY PRINTED. 


—_——___.. 


WORCESTER: 
PRINTED BY CHARLES HAMILTON, 
PALLADIUM OFFICE, 


1874. 


NOTE. 


These lectures, as the dates will show, were delivered on 
alternate Sunday evenings during the last winter. Although 
they were written solely for immediate use, yet I cannot regret 
that the subjects proved interesting, and that some of my 
hearers wished them to be put in more permanent shape. In 
response to this request, I take great pleasure in giving the 
lectures now, under their original form, into the hands of 


the kind friends who listened to them so indulgently. 


Worcester, July, 1874. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE I. 


PAUL AND THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.... - 


LECTURE II. 


VIEWS OF THE EARLY CHURCH CONCERNING 


LrecrureE III. 


ARIANISM AND THE COUNCIL OF NICE... . 


LEcTuRE IV. 


THe NESTORIAN CONTROVERSY. ..-=+- > 


LECTURE Y. 


THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY... +--+ @ ; 


LecTuRE VI. 


rp CArHOlie CHURCH «.« ¢ s . ss « 9% 


LECTURE YII. 


Tus LUTHERAN HERESY. -.--+-+-+-+ ss 


Lecture VIII. 


T’RINITABIAN HERESIES. - « »-.6 + © 5 2 o » 


LECTURE IX. 


TINETARIAN PIERESIBES. «5. 2 sso s 2 « Fes 


LECTURE X. 


RELIGION AND DOGMA + 3 » * #6 © = s = 


CHRIST 


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LECTURE I. 


PAUL AND THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 


Tux terms Orthodoxy and Heresy are so familiarly used 
that it seems to me worth while to attach to them, if 
possible, a definite signification. Have they any exact 
meaning in relation to Christianity, and if so, what is 
it? What is Christian Orthodoxy, and what phases of 
belief come legitimately under the head of heresy? To 
answer these questions is the purpose of the present course 
of lectures. If in accomplishing this purpose the lectures 
shall also aid in answering the further question, Is Ortho- 
doxy of faith essential to Christianity? or the question 
larger still, Is dogma a necessary part of religion? the 
entire object of the course, as it now lies in my mind, will 
be attained. 

The first point to be made, in carrying out this plan, is 
to determine the meaning of Christian Orthodoxy. The 
term heresy, as commonly used, has no meaning unless 
the religion in question has an established and authorized 
system of doctrines. Had Christianity such a system at 
the beginning and if not, when did it form one ? 

To determine this point, we must look first at the very be- 


ginnings of the Christian Church. I invite you this evening, 


4 


therefore, to glance with me at Christianity as held by its 
first disciples ; by the Apostles of Christ themselves. Here 
are the historical records; very scanty it is true, and often 

vaguest where we should wish to have them most exact, 
and yet, scanty as they are, containing far more than is 
commonly discovered. I propose to look carefully, to- 
night, at the pages of the New Testament, and will do my 
best neither to put anything into them, nor to take anything 
out which is not there. 

Exactly how soon after the death of Jesus the Apostles 
gathered again at Jerusalem, we cannot tell, for all the mem- 
ories of this period, as is quite natural, were vague and con- 
fused, and the dates in the Book of Acts are as uncertain as 
the events described are misty and phantom-like. No better 
illustration could be given of the state of mind common to 
all who passed through the exciting scenes of Christ’s seizure © 
and crucifixion, than the conflicting statements as to the time 
which elapsed before what is called his ascension. This 
event, unknown to Matthew, to John, and to Mark,’ but 
mentioned twice by Luke, is described by him in one case” 
as happening within one day of the Resurrection, ieee. 
other case® as happening after forty days. In other words, 
when these two books were written, it was already forgotten 
whether Jesus was with his disciples after his crucifixion for 
twenty-four hours or for more than a month. 

The one thing which is clear in the early chapters of Acts, 
is that the Apostles were gathered in Jerusalem, and were 
living in daily expectation of their Master’s return. The 


crucifixion, as you know, had astonished and scattered them. 


The last twelve verses of Mark’s gospel are commonly pronounced 


spurious. Luke xxiv: 1,.18, 36, 51. SActs1: 3. 


5 


It brought not only terror but despair; for it seemed, at the 
moment, a final blow to all their hopes. So firmly rooted 
in their minds was the belief, long traditional among the 
Jews, that their Messiah would not die, but was to re-estab- 
lish on earth the Kingdom of Israel, and subject all nations 
to Jehovah’s sway, that their first feeling was that they had 
been wholly deceived. “We trusted it had been he” they 
said “ which should have redeemed Israel.”? The crucifixion 
thus forced upon them this stern alternative ; either Jesus 
was not the Messiah, or he had not really or finally died. 
He had passed up directly into heaven, to return as he had 
promised, “before that generation should pass” to establish 
himself on earth as king. Tiga 

Which side of this alternative they chose, we all know. 
Their faith in Jesus proved stronger than all their forebod- 
ings, and they came together again in Jerusalem, as he had 
bidden them, to await his speedy coming. The state of 
feeling with which they met, appears plainly from an exami- 
nation of the language which all the writers of this period 
employ. With the idea of heaven then prevailing as a local 
spot above the clouds, inhabited by God and his angels, it 
was easy for the Jew to conceive of Jesus as having been 
snatched up into the skies, where he would sit “at the right 
hand of God,”? until the time arrived when he should come 
down “in like manner as they had seen him go up into 
heaven,”® and mount the Messiah’s throne. Everything 
indicates this expectation. Christ’s coming is not spoken 
of in these pages as an event which has already occurred, 


but as something still to be. The tense is not past but 


EU XRIV E21, 2Acts 1m: 33. 3 Acts 1: 11. 


6 


e 


. . e | 
future. The Messiah has not “come,” he “is coming. 
“The Lord shall send Jesus Christ which was preached 


unto you,” says Peter in healing the lame man.’ Such 


’ 


expressions as “ Waiting for the coming of the Lord 
Jesus,” “* Waiting for the Lord,” “The coming of the Lord 
draweth nigh,” “ We are that alive and remain unto the com- 
ing of the Lord,” are constantly met in all the writings of 
this age. It is an hour of intense expectancy, with all the 
high-wrought feeling and excited imagination which always 
characterize such hours. They are waiting for their Lord. 
Every unusual event seems startling, providential, miracu- 
lous. Every stir in the elements might be the descent of the 
Holy Ghost which he had promised; every breath of wind, 
his coming down from the skies whither he had ascended. 
The religious organization of this little band of primitive 
Christians seems to have corresponded wholly with their re- 
ligious faith. Various sects have been at pains to trace back 
their ecclesiastical forms to these early days. In reality, I 
suppose, the simplest organization ever thought of in our 
own times is far too complicated for the Apostolic age. In- 
deed, why should we look for any distinct organization at 
all? ‘The time was short.” “The day of the Lord was to 
come as a thief in the night.” It might be a few years, it 
might be a few months, it might be but a few days, ere the 
Son of Man should appear. What motive was there then 
for establishing special rites, or ecclesiastical offices, or sacred 
places, or holy days? | i 
Plainly nothing of the kind was done. Judging at least 


from the evidence before us, the disciples of Jesus continued 


1 Acts m1: 20. 


7 


as before, living and worshipping among their fellow Jews, 
sharing the universal expectation of a Messiah, differing 
from their fellow countrymen only in considering Jesus of 
Nazareth the Messiah, and cherishing his glorious image in 
their hearts. There is no proof that as yet, or until they 
were forced to do so, they separated themselves openly from 
other Jews, or showed any disposition to forsake Jewish ob- 
servances. They still read and quoted the Mosaic Scrip- 
tures, they still baptized their converts into the Jewish 
Church, they were found “ daily with one accord in the Tem- 
ple,” they observed the Jewish Pentecost,’ Passover,’ and 
Sabbath,’ they performed Jewish vows,° they were faithful to 
the Jewish hours of prayer,® they “abstained from meats 
offered to idols, and from blood, and from things stran- 
gled,”’ they surrendered with great reluctance, and only in 
course of time, the rite of circumcision.£ They were as yet 
a family rather than a church ; a domestic, not an ecclesiasti- 
cal group. “All that believed were together, and had all 
things common ;” “breaking bread from house to house, 
they did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of 
heart.”’ In later times, when they had ceased longer to ex- 
pect Jesus, and began only to remember him, this simple 
ceremony of the “breaking of bread,” assumed a memorial 
form, and became, after a few years, the Lord’s Supper. 
But not at first. For a time his followers were wholly ab- 


sorbed in the hope of his coming; they were looking 


Pees 46. *Acts 12°); Kx:° 16+ 1 Cor. xvi: 8. °* Acts xx: 6: 
*Acts xm: 42, 44; xvi: 18; xvu: 2; xvmi: 4. 5Acts xvut: 18; 
XxI: 23-26. -® Acts Peek wel 9, ACIS Xvi 29.. =? Acts: xwr Es 
xvi: 3; Gal. yi: 12. ° Acts 1: 44, 46. 


8 


forward, not backward. They were Jews still, with a fine 
expectation in their souls. 

Such was primitive Christianity. Such for the first eight 
or ten years of its existence, at least, was the Christian 
Church, if Church it could yet be called. Nor was its doc- 
trinal faith less primitive than its form. No one who reads 
the accounts of the first preaching of the Apostles, and no- 
tices the appeals by which they won their first converts, can 
fail to be struck by the limited range and extreme simplicity 
of their discourses. Of the higher thought which Jesus had 
spoken, no hint is to be found. The single theme, reiterated 
in many forms, which seems to have covered the whole 
ground of their ministry, was this: Jesus is the Messiah ; 
he will speedily come; repent and be baptized in his name. 

But it was impossible for this state of things to last. 
Narrow and unspiritual as were these first teachings, 
still the higher thought was there, for it had certainly been 
spoken, and was waiting then for further utterance.’ Not 
every one had forgotten it, or failed to comprehend it. 
Among those who joined in the Jewish ceremonials, some 
there must have been who were carrying in their hearts 
those better words, “ Man is greater than the sabbath,” “ Ye 
hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise and cummin,” - 
“ Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the Kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of 
my Father which is in heaven.” It was only necessary for 
some soul to appear, responsive to these nobler utterances, 
and conscious of their inconsistency with the Mosaic faith, 
and the little Christian community would learn a larger Gos- 
pel. It was only a question of time when the new truth 
should come to an open break with the old. 


9 


The first warning note of the inevitable conflict came from 
a quarter whence one would least have expected it. While 
Peter, John and James preached their Gospel among the 
Jews without exciting hostility, the first serious offence seems 
to have been caused by one of a little group of subordinates 
created in somewhat contemptuous spirit, to “serve the 
tables,” and wait upon the widows, while the Twelve gave 
themselves “to prayer and the ministry of the word.”? 
Lowly as was their office, one among their number rose at 
once above the very apostles who had so haughtily assigned 
them their work. 

The fate of Stephen, the first martyr, 1s a familiar story 5 
I ask you now simply to notice the exact cause of his violent 
death. That he preached Jesus as the Messiah could not 
have been his offence in the eyes of the Jews, for Peter and 
John had long taught this without being stoned. The charge 
against him was a more serious one—* We have heard him 
say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and 
shall change the customs which Moses delivered sey eT 
other words, Stephen was the first to be put to death, be- 
cause he was the first to catch the more spiritual purport of 
Jesus’ words, and set them in contrast with the Mosaic cere- 
monial. Quoting, perhaps, such sayings as these, “Tn this 
place is one greater than the Temple;”*® quoting from their 
own scriptures, “The most high dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands,”! Stephen, like his Master before him,° 
was charged with blasphemy, and when he bravely refused 
to retract, he was stoned to death for having spoken 


‘Caoainst Moses and against God.” 
1 Acts vi: 2-4. 2Acts vi: 14. Matt. xm: 6. 4 Acts vir: 48. 
5Matt. xxvi: 61. . 


10 


Stephen’s death, however, beautiful and heroic as it seems 
to have been, gains its chief significance from the conse- 
quences to which it led,.and the impression which its heroism 
seems to have made upon one greater than himself, or one 
at least with larger opportunity to carry forward the truth 
for which Stephen had become a martyr. This is not the 
place for a full account of Paul’s ministry; yet it is impor- 
tant to notice, just at this point, the exact circumstances of 
his actual entrance as a teacher and worker into the 
Christian community. 

Paul’s apostleship by no means began with his conversion, 
nor was his conversion itself the instantaneous thing it might 
at first appear. Like aJl genuine spiritual changes, it was 
evidently a gradual process, culminating, no donbt, in one. 
startling experience, but prepared for, as we have seen, by 
the incidents of Stephen’s death as well as by a general ac 
quaintance with Christian teachings, and followed by a long 
period of apparent solitude and reflection. According to 
his own account, he first spent three years in Arabia and 
Damascus, either feeling as yet no call to engage openly in 
the new cause, or not wholly at home in it, went then to Je- 


rusalem to consult with the leading Christian Apostles, met 


with no warm welcome from them, but only with suspicion 


and fear, and finally retired, as if in discouragement, to his 


native ‘Tarsus, where he remained until certain new develop- | 


ments brought him into active service. 


After the death of Stephen, the little community at Jeru- 
salem became naturally the object. of greater suspicion on 4 
the part of the J ews, and finally of a general persecution, — 


—--_—_. 


1Gal. 1: 17-18; Acts 1x: 26-30. 


ag 


which does not seem to have affected the Apostles, but which 
drove many of the more zealous members abroad “ through- 
out the regions of Judea and Samaria,”! “as far as Cy- 
prus and Antioch.”? But here arose at once a new perplexi- 
ty. Hitherto, as we have seen, the whole movement had 
been carried on within the Jewish church, nor did any of 
the Apostles seem to have considered that their mission ex- 
tended beyond it. Recalling, perhaps, certain words of 
Jesus himself? they evidently regarded the coming of the 
Messiah as in consequence of the promise made to the chosen 
people, and therefore as concerning them alone. Acting on 
this principle when they first left Jerusalem, they soon 
found themselves, for the first time, face to face with 
Greeks, and some of their number ventured to preach the 
Lord Jesus, and offer the blessings of his Messiahship, even 
to them. At once rumors of this bold proceeding reached 
the Apostles at Jerusalem, to whom the action seemed so 
grave and the moment so critical, that Barnabas, one of the 
most trustworthy of their followers, was instantly sent to 
Antioch, where the new movement had begun, to take the 
matter in charge. Barnabas in turn, with this new and seri- 
ous responsibility upon him, seems to have bethought him- 
self of the zealous convert, whom the Apostles had 
regarded with so much suspicion, but whose worth he had 
‘recognized from the first, and who was then in retirement at 
Tarsus. Saul, visited thus in person by Barnabas, and called 
to the new field which had opened outside of Jerusalem, en- 
tered willingly upon the work, and found himself, as events 


proved, exactly where his help was most needed, and his 


> 


1Acts vir: 1. 2Acts x1: 19. ®Matt. x: 5,6; Matt. xv: 24. ‘Acts 
ici, 20. 


12 


powers could be turned to best account." His special mis- 
sion was obvious at once. ‘ 
But few years passed after Saul’s entrance upon his labors, 1 
before an event occurred which proved how well Barnabas F 
had chosen, and how sorely the Apostles needed precisely — 
the element among them which the new convert brought. 
The new experiment which had been initiated at Antioch, of 
preaching the gospel to Gentile as well as Jew, and inviting 
both to enter the heavenly kingdom on equal terms, was — 
by no means regarded with universal favor. On the contrary, 4 
it was held by many to be subversive, as it really was, of the — 
ancient faith, and caused nowhere greater scandal than in 
Jerusalem, in the sacred circle of the Apostles themselves. 
Alarmed at the rumors which reached their ears, they sent 
messengers to Antioch who were dismayed at discovering an 
even greater looseness and freedom than they had supposed. 
They even found that converts were admitted into the church 
without being circumcised ; and felt called upon to tell the — 
foilowers of Barnabas and Paul “ Except ye be circumcised — 
after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved.”2 
The council at Jerusalem which resulted from this visit, 
and which is so differently narrated in Acts XV, and Gal. 
I,” was evidently the most important event in the early his- i 
tory of the church, and the singular asperity with which it | 
was conducted shows how serious a point was involved in its F 
discussions. Paul himself, in writing of it to the Galatians, 
1 Acts xi: 22-26; Acts ix: 26, 27. 2 Acts xv? 1, 


* The discrepancy between these two accounts has long been familiar — 
to Bible students, and has defied all attempts at reconciliation. In 


choosing between them we are justified, of course, in following: the ~ 
statements of Paul himself. 4 


13 


about sixteen years later, betrays plainly enough by the 
exceptional severity and sarcasm of his tone how deeply 
he had been wounded, and how angry an opposition he had 
encountered at the hands of the Jerusalem Apostles. The 
messengers whom they had sent to Antioch to examine into 
its affairs, he calls “false brethren, unawares brought in, who 
came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in 
Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.”? 
Speaking of the Apostles themselves, he says “those who 
seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no 
matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person.)” “James, 
Cephas, and John who seemed to be pillars ;”? while through- 
out the whole account Paul is anxious to show the great dif- 
ference of opinion between himself and the Apostles, and to 
prove how little he allowed himself to be influenced by 
them. . 

The meaning of all this is unmistakable, and the attitude 
in which Paul appears is admirable. Nothing in his whole 
career brings out so clearly the strength of his character or 
the intensity and persistency of his purpose, as this first great 
triumph over official blindness and bigotry. The picture is 
a striking one. On the one side were Peter, James and 
John, the personal followers of Jesus, who had heard his 
words and been eye-witnesses of his career, who had been 
chosen to represent him and still bore unchallenged the 
sacred title of “‘ Apostles,” yet who honestly believed that 
the gospel was to the Jews, that every one who accepted it 
must accept also the whole Law of Moses, that the rite of cir- 
cumcision, the eating of certain meats, and the observance 


1Gal. m: 4. 2Gal. m: 6-9. 


14 


of Sabbaths and feast days, as being part of the Law of 
Moses, were as incumbent upon the follower of Christ as 
upon the Jew himself, and that to admit Gentiles into the 
kingdom on equal terms was to falsify all the promises of 
the Fathers. On the other side appeared this new and al- 
most unknown convert, but just now their malignant perse- 
eutor; this recent comer into their ranks, who had never 
heard or seen Jesus, who claimed no official authority what- — 
ever, yet who dared boldly to dispute their word and deny 
their interpretion of the new faith, to challenge the sanctity 
of the Mosaie Law, and claim exemption from its “ bond- 
age”? in the name of Christ, to take open ground against 
the necessity of circumcision, and to claim for himself the 
same right to preach to the Gentiles which the Jerusalem 
Apostles had to preach to the Jews. On the one side, official 
dignity and traditional authority; on the other, the force 
of personal conviction. It is proof enough of Paul’s 
strength, that in the unequal conflict he carried the day. It 
isa happy thing for Christianity that in this first great strug- 
gle between the letter and the spirit, the cause of christian | 
freedom found so resolute a champion. Paul did not win the 
Apostles over to his belief; but he secured their recognition 
and endorsement of his work. They consented that the field 
should be divided between themselves and him. “ When 
James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, per- 
ceived the grace given to me, they gave to me and Barnabas 
the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the 
"heathen, ‘and they unto the circumcision.” ! 


That Ihave not exaggerated either the importance of this — 


1Gal. i: 9. 


15 


event, or the gravity of the dissension between Paul and his 
opponents, is amply proved by the frequent allusions to these 
very points in Paul’s several epistles. The danger that his 
followers would feel themselves still bound by the Jewish 
Law seemed constantly upon his mind. “Stand fast there- 
fore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and 
be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” ‘“ Be- 
hold, I Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised Christ 
shall profit you nothing.”* ‘“ Why turn ye again to the weak 
and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in 
bondage? Ye observe days and months, and times and 


years.” 


“One believeth that he may eat all things: another 
who is weak eateth herbs.” ‘One man esteemeth one day 
above another; another esteemeth every day alike.”* ‘ He 
is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circum- 
cision which is outward in the flesh.”* “ We are the cireum- 
cision, which worship God in the spirit’? “Let no -man 
judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, 
or of the new moon, or of the sabbath.”® 

Other passages prove that sides were early taken on this 
ereat question, and parties threatened the unity of the young 
church. “Every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of 
Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ di- 
vided.”? “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which 
cause divisions and avoid them.”® 
Equally significant are other passages which prove either 


that Paul was strangely ‘sensitive as to his official title, or 


else, as is far more likely, that his opponents strove to lessen 


ee 


1Gal. v: 1,2. 2Gal. tv: 9, 10. ?Rom. XIv: 9-5. *Rom. u: 28. 
6 Phil. uz: 3. ©Coloss. mu: 16. 71 Cor. xi: 13. * Rom. Xvi: iT. 


a 7 5 oh : 


16 


his authority by denying him the name of Apostle, and 


taunted him with the fact that he had received no commis 
sion from Jesus himself. “ Paul, an Apostle, not of men, 
but by Jesus Christ and God the Father.”* “Am TI not an 
Apostle? AmI not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ 
our Lord?”? “T suppose I was not a whit behind the very 
chiefest Apostles.” ‘ For in nothing am I behind the very 
chiefest Apostles.’ 

The character of the opposition which Paul encountered 
through life, and the source from which it came, appear in 
passages like these,—“ His letters, say they, are weighty and 
powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech 
contemptible.” “ Such are false apostles, deceitful workers, 
transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ.”4 “JI 
marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you 
unto another gospel.” “If any man preach any other gos- 
pel unto you than that ye have received, let him be ac- 
cursed.”” “They that are such serve not our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair 
speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.”® “Ave they 
Hebrews? so aml. Are they Israelites? so am J. Are 
they ministers of Christ ? I am more.”? 

Indeed, the most striking fact connected with Paul’s whole 
ministry is that which this last passage so explicitly states ; 
that the hostility which so constantly pursued him, which 
bafiled his projects and maligned his name, and denounced 
his doctrines and stole from him the hearts of his followers, 
arose not from among the Jews whom he had left, but from 


oe 


1Gal.1: 1. 71 Cor.1x: 1. %2 Cor. xt: 5; 2 Cor. xm: 11. 42 or. | 
X:10; 2Cor. x1: 18. 5Gal.r: 6-9. ®Rom.xvr: 18. 72 Cor. xr: 22; 93 an 


17 


among the Christians to whom he came. His bitterest foes 
were within the Church itself. This fact has already ap- 
_ peared; it is still more clearly proved by his experiences 
during his last visit to Jerusalem. The other Apostles, as 
we have seen, had dwelt in Jerusalem for years in perfect 
quiet and safety. Not even the persecutions connected with 
Stephen’s death had disturbed them. No sooner, however, 
did Paul appear than they were filled with alarm for his 
safety. They reminded him how many Christians there were 
in Jerusalem who still clung to the Law, and who distrusted 
him because of his giving up circumcision! They besought 
him to silence these prejudices by taking upon himself a vow, 
and shutting himself up for seven days in the Temple, that 
they might see how faithfully he kept the Law’ Their fears 
proved well-grounded and their precautions useless. ‘The 
instant Paul was seen in the Temple he was seized by the 
multitudes, drawn from the Temple, beaten, and was on the 
point of being killed, when he was rescued by the Roman . 
soldiery.2 Seized and beaten, not because he was a Christ- 
ian, else Peter and James and John would long before have 
been seized; but because, like Stephen betore him, he 
“taught the Jews to forsake Moses ;” “because he taught 
all men everywhere against the people, and the law and this 
place.”* In other words, Paul was persecuted, if these nar- 
ratives are correct, not by Jews, but by Jewish Christians. 

This hostility to Paul and his anti-Jewish teachings, does 
not seem to have ceased with his death. Indeed, there are 
some indications that it was more than a century before this 


early antagonism was forgotten, and the Christian Church 


1 Acts xxI: 20,21. 2Acts xxi: 23-26. %Acts XXxI: 27-32. +*Acts 
5G SEW Nee 


18 


admitted Paul to an equal place in its esteem with his fellow- 
apostles. Among the churches which he had founded, some, 


we are told, were made to forget his name; among the 


earlier writers, some allude to him as a “ teacher of error,” 
while others quietly ignore him. As late as the middle of 
the second century, a curious book appeared, under the name 
of the “ Clementine Homilies,” purporting to give a series 
of disputes between the Apostle Peter and the heretic Si- 
mon Magus, in which there is little doubt that under the dis- 
guise of Simon Magus, Paul himself is intended and exposed 
to reprobation. He is represented as corrupting the teach- 
ings of Peter, and bringing in false doctrines. ‘ Some there 
were,” says Peter, “ who rejected my teachings, and followed 
the unlawful and worthless doctrine of one hostile to me. 
Even during my life, some undertook, by artificial interpre- 
tation, to.twist my precepts into the overthrow of the Law.” 
In another place, as if in allusion to Paul’s claim to have 
received his inspiration through visions, Peter says, “ Can 
one become an Apostle through a vision? If thou in a sin- 
gle hour, couldst be made a teacher by a vision, why then 
should Christ have remained with his disciples and taught 
them for an entire year ?”} 

Indeed, these opponents of Paul and his doctrines became 
by degrees a sect. In later times, when Paul’s idea of 
Christianity had won a tardy acceptance, they were pro- 
nounced heretics under the name of Ebionites. The Ebion- 
ites were those Christians of the 2d and 3d centuries who 
regarded Christianity as “Judaism perfected by a few addi- 


tional precepts ;”” who claimed that the Mosaic Law was still 


—— 


Quoted in Baur’s Christenthum der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 1: 80, 
81. Comp. also Neander’s History of Christian Church, 1: 353-361. 
2Neander 1: 344. 


19 


in force ; who looked towards Jerusalem when they prayed ; 
who believed in circumcision ; who kept the Jewish Passo- 
ver ; who looked upon Jesus as simply a man distinguished 
above others for legal piety and so becoming Lawgiver and 
Messiah, and to be classed with Moses and the Prophets ; 
and finally, who hated the Apostle Paul and rejected his 
Epistles. In a word, the Ebionites were the legitimate suc- 
cessors and exact counterparts of the party that arrayed 
itself against Paul while Paul still lived. In the 4th cen- 
tury they are heretics ;* in the first century they are the 
Apostles at Jerusalem. 


Such then was the first great struggle within the Christian 
Church. In these days, when Christianity, though still 
somewhat “entangled with the yoke of bondage,” has yet 
learned to claim with pride that its message is a universal 
one, and when no one denies that within Christian limits ‘is 
neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither 
male nor female,” it is difficult for us to carry our im- 
aginations back to the time when this point was still at 
issue. Yet it is well for us to remember, this. Leis 
well for us to remember that for more than a century 
it was an open question whether Christianity was to be 
a new Jewish sect, or a new religion. And it is well for 
us to recall some of the bitter conflicts by which the ques- 
- tion was decided. The emancipation of Christianity from 
the bonds of Judaism, the vindication of its separate right 
to be, was not the work of a day or an hour, but ran with 
varying and uncertain result through and far beyond the life 
of the great Apostle to the Gentiles. While he lived the 


- 1 Baur: 157. 


20 


question was determined by the sheer weight of his invinci- 
ble personality ; after his death it was mainly the impulse he 
‘had given it, and the noble words he left behind him, which 
carried the problem to its triumphant conclusion. 

No one who cares for his Christian faith can refuse his in- 
terest to the hours when this point was still undecided ; his’ 
sympathy to those who so valiantly fought for what long 
seemed a hopeless cause; or his gratitude to the great leader 
who, against overwhelming odds, maintained the cause of 
spiritual freedom, and pledged Christianity to the largest 


service. 


Pe Ue: 01. 


‘JANUARY 4, 1874. 


VIEWS OF THE EARLY CHURCH CONCERNING CHRIST. 


My present lecture grows naturally out of the preceding. 
In glancing at the early church, so far from finding a fixed 
ecclesiastical form or definite theological doctrines at the 
start, we found the first generation of believers engaged in 
a serious controversy. One of the most vital questions 
that could arise was still undecided, and threatened to divide 
the infant church in twain; the question whether Christianity 
was to be merely a modification of Judaism, or a distinct 
religion addressed to all who would receive it. The imme- 
diate disciples of Jesus, strongly Jewish in their feelings, as 
they had been during their Master’s life, regarded Christian- . 

ity as simply a new development of the Mosaic faith, while 
- the new-comer, Paul, seeing at once the larger meaning of 
the truth to which he was converted, insisted upon welcom- 
ing Gentiles as well as Jews, on the single condition of their 
belief in Christ. The question was too important to be left 
unsettled, yet the ‘differences were too great to be reconciled 
in an hour. In fact, the history of the first century of 

4 


22 ‘ 


4 


Christianity is mainly the record of the struggles by which 
Christianity vindicated its right toa name and a career of 
its own. 

But this controversy involved, of course, much more than 
the one question of admitting Gentiles to the church without 
circumcision. It involved the nature and character of Jesus 
himself. According to one of these two parties, Jesus was 
simply the long-expected Messiah of the Jews; according to 
the other, he was a religious teacher, and the divine messen- 
ger of a new faith. We cannot be surprised, therefore, to 


find this question a very prominent one in those early years, 


and to find also many conflicting views of Christ’s nature | 


among his followers before a definite and generally accepted 
opinion was reached. To trace the more interesting of these 
early views is my purpose to-night. 

As I have just intimated, the entire controversy concern- 
ing Christ’s nature, which has continued unbroken in the 
Christian Church down to our own day, originated in the 
twofold conception of his person and his oftice which existed 
while the church was forming. Indeed, this twofold concep- 
tion found its way into the Christian Scriptures themselves, 
written as they were during the first half-century or century 
of the growth of the church. The generation which first 
had written Gospels and Epistles in their hands found im- 
bedded in them at least two distinct views of the nature of 
Jesus. As this point is of great importance to the further 
discussion, let me state it as plainly as my space allows. 

In the first three Gospels, which, although composed later 
than some of Paul’s Epistles, yet represent in the original 
material from which they are drawn, the earliest existing 


narratives and impressions of Christian times, Jesus appears 


/ 
’ 


23 


in strictest sense as the Jewish Messiah. His family register 
stands upon the first page, proving him an anointed King 
or Messiah in regular descent from the house of David. As 
we read on, we find frequent allusions to “the Kingdom,” 
“the Kingdom of God,” “ the Kingdom of Heaven,” “ King- 
dom of our father David,” “Children of the Kingdom ;” all 
these being the current designations of the Kingdom of the 
Messiah. As we read too, we find such words as these: 
“ Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of 
the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel.”! “Iam not sent but unto the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel.”?_ “Think not that I am come 
to destroy the Law or the Prophets; 1 am not come to 
destroy bnt to fulfil.”* In these pages too, more than 
anywhere else, we find full quotations from the Jewish 
Scriptures to prove that the ancient prophecies found their 
fulfilment at last in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 

In the first three Gospels then, especially in Matthew, 
Jesus appears exclusively as the Jewish Messiah or Christ. 
And the Jewish Messiah, I need not remind you, was never 
thought of except asa man. Indeed, to the purely Jewish 
mind, trained for centuries to think of Jehovah as in absolute 
isolation from his human subjects, no other thought would pre- 
sent itself; and certainly none other is found in all the Jew- 
ish Scriptures, or in the New Testament writings which most 
reflect the Jewish spirit. According to Matthew, Mark and 
Luke, Jesus was a purely human Messiah. They alone, as 
we have seen, give his human descent, they alone give do- 


mestic incidents of his life, they alone record his Temptation, 


1Matt. x: 5, 6. 2Matt. xv: 24. 3 Matt. v: 17. 
? 


24 


his gradual reconnition of his coming fate, the agony of the 
garden, the exclamation of despair upon the cross. They 
represent him-as foretold by the prophets, indeed, but fore- 
told only as an anointed King. Two of these Gospels speak 
of a miraculous birth, and descent of the Holy Spirit from 
Heaven at his baptism; but this would only make him a 
greater Messiah than any before. He wrought miracles, it 
is true; but so, according to the Jewish Scriptures, had 
Moses and Samuel, and Nathan and Elijah, human beings all 
of them. Indeed, so did many of the Jews still living, by 
the testimony of Jesus himself. “If I by Beelzebub cast 
out devils, by whom do your children cast them ont?”! It 
is quite safe to say that throughout the first three Gospels, 
Jesus is in no single passage ranked above humanity. 

The moment we turn, however, from these Gospels to the 
Epistles of Paul, we find ourselves in another region of 
thought and faith. Paul, as we have already seen, found the 
strict Messianic view of Jesus as held by the Apostles at 
Jerusalem too narrow for him, and claimed for his great 
Teacher a nobler work than simply the reéstablishment of 
the Jewish Kingdom. And as the mission of Christianity 
seemed so much nobler, so, to Paul’s thought, the person 
of Jesus assumed a higher dignity and quite supernatural 
glory. He does not cease to speak of J esus, and to regard. 
him as man. “There is one God,” says Paul, “and one 
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”? 
“Since by man came death, by man came also the resur- 
rection of the dead.”* “The first man, Adam, was made a 


living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” 


1Matt. x11: 27. 21 Tim. wm: 6. 2) Cor.exV ole 


25 


. 


“The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man 
is (the Lord) from heaven.”? 

“Tf through the offence of one many be dead, much more 
the grace of God, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath 
abounded unto many.”? “He will judge the world in 
righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained.’ 

In no passage of Paul’s Epistles is Jesus called God,* 
yet it is plain that Paul ascribed to him a nature as exalted 
as was his function. Jesus was man, indeed, but a heavenly 
and glorified man. Whatever difficulty such a conception 
may cause to modern theologians, Paul found it easy, as we 
have already seen, to speak of “the man from heaven,”* 
Indeed, no words seemed to him too strong to describe the 
person or the place of this glorious being whose mission was 
not to any single people, but to universal humanity. Christ 
ig “the mediator between God and men.”® He is “ the 
image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature.” 
“ By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and 
that are in earth.” “He is before all things, and by him all 
things consist.” “He is the head of the body, the church, 
who is the beginning, the first born from the dead.” ‘In 
him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” 


11 Cor. xv: 45, 47. 2Rom. v: 15. 8 Acts Xvi: 31. 


*The only possible exception to this statement is Rom. Ix: 5, 
where the common version, although contested by the best authorities, 
is certainly the most natural one; the strongest argument against it be- 
ing that, if correct, this would be the only place where Paul applies the 
term God to Christ, or ascribes to him the doxology. The question is 
one of punctuation; the corrected reading being ‘‘God over all be 
blessed forever.” 


41 Cor. xv: 47. The best readings omit ‘‘ the Lord” from this verse. 
6 Baur’s Christenthum 1: 284-290. ®17T.u: 5. ‘Col. 1: 646, 275403 
He 9: 


26 


“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to 
be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation and 
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the 
likeness of men.” “Wherefore God also hath highly 
exalted him, and given him a name which is above every 
name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should 
bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things 
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that 
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”? 

That this is a very exalted and sublimated conception of 
humanity, no one will deny. To many minds, a being who 
has existed from the beginning, in whom (or by whom) all 
things were created, and “in whom dwelleth all the fulness 
of the Godhead,” must be of necessity divine ; and although 
Paul himself does not suggest this, yet it is quite natural, 
after meditation upon this point once began, that the further 
step should be taken, and this supernatural being be lifted 
altogether above humanity. 

When the Fourth Gospel was written, this step seems to 
have been already taken. The date of this Gospel is still 
uncertain; many critics, with no little reason on their side, 
placing it as late as the middle of the second century.’ 
Taking the earliest date commonly given however,’ and 
supposing John to have been its author, it must have been 
written nearly fifty years after Christ’s death, thirty years 
later than Paul’s earliest Epistles,* and twenty years later 
than his last.2 Time had been given, therefore, for much 
speculation upon the office and person of Christ ; and who-— 


ever the writer may have been, he was evidently not averse 


SBAMeuIT 26, F914. 2Compare Sears’s Heart of Christ; Tayler’s 
Fourth Gospel. *About A. D. 80. +A.D. 52 or 53. 5A. D. 60 or 63. 


27 


to speculation, nor one to whom the religious thought of 
the day would be unknown. 

What religious ideas were current among the more culti- 
vated Jews at this period is now pretty well known, and ean 
be understood by recalling the experience of the nation 
after.the time of their exile. Upon the destruction of Jeru- 


salem, while part of the Jewish people were carried captive 


_ to Babylon, another large portion took refuge in Egypt, 


_ which became from that time the home of a large Jewish 
colony. From each of these two sources a perceptible influ- 
ence was exerted upon the primitive Mosaic faith. 

According to the religious philosophy of Zoroaster, which 
became familiar to the Jews in Babylon, Ormuzd, the God 
of Light, brought everything into being by his Word, which 
had existed before the world. He spoke, and all good 
things were created. All understanding, wisdom, virtue, 
are expressions of this Word. The Chaldaic paraphrases of 
the Old Testament show that this conception of the divine 
Word had found its way into Jewish theology before the 
time of Christ.! 

In Egypt, the Jews encountered a somewhat similar con- 
ception and similar phraseology, in the Greek philosophy 
which had also found a home there, and which had taken the 
form of a modified Platonism. Plato’s original conception 
of the divine Idea, or Reason, had become personified by 
his followers, and endowed with distinct functions. It was 
the Logos (Word); the first-born Son of God, born before 
the creation of the world, and itself the agent in creation. 
The Logos was the image of the divine perfection; the 


- 1Bretschneider’s Glaubenslehre, (1844), p. 197, 299. 


28 


mediator between God and man. As the purest reflection 
of Deity, and sharer in his nature, it was even called a God; 
never “the God,” but sometimes “God.” 

Philo, a Jewish writer of Alexandria, born about twenty 


years before Christ, while insisting constantly that God is 


One and Supreme, yet says “God, not condescendimg to — 


come down to external senses, sends his own Words or 
Angels for the sake of giving assistance to those who love 
virtue.”* He speaks of “two powers;” “God the benefi- 
cent power, Lord the royal power.”? He regards the words 
‘“ Let ws make man in our image,” as proving that Jehovah 
had an- assistant, or assistants, in the work of creation.* 
He points out the difference between God, when preceded 
by the article, (ho theos), meaning the one absolute being, 
and God without the article (theos,) meaning “a god;” and 
speaks of the Logos, not only as the “oldest” and “first- 
born” Son of God, (presbytatos; protogonos), but also as 
the “Second God,” (deuteros theos). | 
That this idea of an intermediate power between the 
Supreme Deity and his creation, an ‘emanation from the 
hidden God, taking personal form, had found entrance into 
the Jewish mind loug before the times of which we are now 
speaking, is plainly proved by passages both from their Ca- 
nonical and from their Apocryphal writings. “I, Wisdom, 
dwell with Prudence.” “The Lord possessed me in the 
beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was 
anointed from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the 
earth was, &e.”® “Wisdom hath been created before all 


—_— — 


1 Bretschneider, 197, 299. *% Philo’s works—Bohn’s edit. WS SOT eo ai 
326. 411: 21. 5Meyer’s Commentary on John’s Gospel, p. 88. Prov. 
Vi: 12, 22,. &e. 


: 
‘ 
q 


29 


things.”! “TI came out of the mouth of the Most High; I 
alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the 
bottom of the deep.” “Come unto me, all ye that be 
desirous of me, and fill yourselves with my fruits.” ‘ They 
that eat me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink me 
shall yet be thirsty.”? “I called upon God and the Spirit 
of Wisdom came unto me.” “In her is a spirit which is 
wise, holy, the only-born.” “She is a breath from the 
power of God.” “She is a reflection of the everlasting 
Light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the 
image of his goodness.”’ “Thine almighty Word leaped 
down from heaven out of thy royal throne.”* — - 

Still more evident is the influence of this thought upon 
the writer of the Fourth Gospel. To his mind it offered 
not the terms of speech alone, but the very order of 
religious ideas which best embodied his conception of the 
spirit and work of Christ. In this Gospel is no longer any 
suggestion of Jesus as the human Messiah. All human 
interests are lost from sight. Here is no family life or per- 
sonal incident ; no vicissitude of emotion or affection ; no 
temptation or agony; here are no beatitudes, no parables, 
no moral precepts. We are walking among supernal beings, 
listening to exalted speech, watching a celestial life. This is 
not the Christ of the first three Gospels; it is something 
even less terrestrial than the glorified being of Paul’s Epis- 
tles. It is “the true Light which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world.” It is the “ only begotten Son which 
is in the bosom of the Father.” It is “the Word.” “The 


same was in the beginning with God. . All things were made 


1Ecclesiasticus 1: 4. 2xxiv: 3, 5,19, 21. ® Wis. of Solomon, vu: 7, 
me, 2b,26. *xvur: 1b. ; @ 
5 


30 


by him ; and without him was not anything made that was 
made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” 
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of 
grace and truth.”?} | 

To this “Word of God,” so mystic in its nature and 
source, divine power is given. ‘The Father loveth the Son, 
and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth 
on the Son hath everlasting life.”? “The Father judgeth no 
man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that 
all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the 
Father.”* He is of celestial nature. “As the Father hath 
life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in 
himself.”* “T am the bread of life.” ““} am the living 
bread which came down from heayen.> “Ye are from 
beneath; Iam from above: ye are of this world; Iam not 
of this world.” “Before Abraham was, Lb am.”?® He 
stands in mysterious relations with the Father. “ No man 
cometh unto the Father but by me.” “Believe me that I | 
am in the Father and the Father in me.” “He that hath — 
seen me hath seen the Father.”7 “I and my Father are 
one,’’® . 

Does this mean that the Son was God ? The whole tone | 
of the religious philosophy with which this Gospel is in such 
entire harmony makes the answer easy. Philo, as we have ; 
seen, with all the writers of his school, insists that there is 
but one God, who is an absolute Being coming into no con- ! 
tact with the universe. From him issues the Logos to dothe 
work of creation; and this Logos, though not the Infinite 


_ * 


1Johni: 1-18. 2m; 35,36. 8y: 2998, 41. 96. Sv: 48, 51. 
Pyar: 26, 8e" Fx 6; 9<1t)) 8x ae: 


al 


God himself, yet shared the divine nature. To express 
this they did not hesitate to use the term God, though 
always without the article. In no simpler way could they 
indicate identity of nature without identity of person. 
Taken in this sense, therefore, their language is unequivo- 
cal. Says the Neo-Platonic philosophy. “ The Word is 
God” (theos). Says the Fourth Gospel also, “ The Word 
was God,” (theos én ho Logos)! 

Such then was the situation at the close of what may be 
called, somewhat “indefinitely, the Apostolic age. Within 
the ranks of the Church, and, as soon as Scriptures exist, 
within the Christian Scriptures themselves, two distinct con- 
ceptions of the nature of Christ ; the one making him a human 
and national Messiah; the other, (treating Paul’s view 
and John’s as in this comparison virtually one), a heavenly 
being in intimate relations with the Father. That a corres- 
ponding difference of opinion should appear in the writings 
of the age which immediately followed, that each of these 
Bible-views should have its followers, is only natural. Let 
me try to show this conflict of opinion, and the gradual 
growth of clearer conceptions, by brief quotations from the 
earlier Fathers of the Church. 

First, Justin Martyr, a Greek convert to Christianity,’ the 
first of the well-known. Christian Fathers, gives us a full 
account® of a dialogue, real or supposed, between himself and 
one Trypho, a Jew, in which Justin seems to be combating 
the very Jewish idea of Christ of which I hawe already spoken. 


Trypho cannot understand how Jesus “‘ submitted to be born 


1See Meyer’s John, p. 40; Baur’s Christenthum 1: 298; Bretschneider, 
p. 299. *Died A. D. 165. *® Written about 140. 


32 


and become man, and yet is not man (born) of men.”! “How 
can you show that beside the Maker of all things there is 
another God who submitted to be born of a virgin?”? He 
makes this charge also against the Christians, “ You observe 
no festivals, or sabbaths, and do not have the rite of circum- 
cision.”? Justin replies by confessing, “Some there are 
among ourselves who admit that Jesus is Christ, while hold- 
ing him to be man of men.”* He afterwards gives his own 
view ; “God begat before all creatures, a certain rational 
power, proceeding from himself, called Glory of the Lord, 
Son, Wisdom, Angel, God, Lord, Logos.”® ‘Moses declares 
that He who appeared unto ‘Abraham under the oak at 
Mamre is God; sent with two angels by Another who 
remains ever in supercelestial places, invisible to all, holding 
personal intercourse with none, whom we believe to be 
Father and Maker of all things.”® “God (or Angel, Lord, 
Christ), wrestled with Jacob.”7 “ He who appeared to Abra- 
ham, and is called God, is distinct from, Him who ‘made all 
things ; numerically I mean, not in will.’ “He who has 
but the smallest intelligence will not venture to assert that 
the Maker and Father of all things, having left all superce- 
lestial matters, was visible in a little portion of the earth.”® 
“You must not imagine that the unbegotten God ‘came 
down’ and ‘went up.” Justin’s argument in this case is 


very simple ; if God came down to the earth to do certain 


things, there would have been no God in heaven, when 


those things happened.” Indeed, he goes go far as to say in 


* 1Works, pp. 134, 148. The quotations from the Fathers, given in this 
lecture, are made from Clarke’s Ante-Nicene Library. ?>p. 151. =p. 09; 
*Trypho xLtvii. 5p. 170. ep. 158. / T palez: © p. 160) 1? p. eos p. 260. 


33 


yeference to the “raining fire from heaven,” “One God 


»l This God on earth 


was in heaven, another God on earth. 
was, of course, the God who afterwards appeared in Christ.’ 
In other words, the Christian mind at this time, taking 
Justin Martyr as its representative, had got so far as to 
consider Christ identical with the God who had personal 
intercourse with the Patriarchs and Prophets, but not with 
the Absolute Deity. 

The danger of this direction of thought, however, is 
apparent. “Tf there is a God on earth (Logos) and another 
in heaven (Jehovah), why then are there not two Gods % 
That this conclusion was actually drawn by many is shown, 
among other places, by a curious passage from Theophilus, 
Bishop of Antioch from 168 to 188,a Pagan by birth like 
Justin, and writing soon after him. He refers to the crea- 
tion of Eve as proving that God is one, not many, and says: 

“God foreknew that men would call upon a number of gods; 
‘lest then it should be supposed that one God made man, 
another woman, therefore he made them both together, the 
woman with the man.’® 

About this time, too, and in the same interest, appeared 
the “Clementine Homilies,” of which I have already spoken,’ 
a species of religious romance in which the two disputants, 
Peter and Simon, stand unquestionably for Peter and Paul, 
the writer not quite venturing to attack Paul by name. 
Simon opens the discussion by insisting that the Jewish 
Scriptures distinctly teach that there are many gods; giving 
as proofs, “Let ws make man in our image.” “Behold, he 


is become as one of us.’® “Thou shalt not revile the 


1Jus. Martyr’s Works, p. 268. 2p. 158. °p. 98. *Lecture fF: p. 18 
SGen. 1: 26; rr: 22. 


34 


gods.”> “The Lord your God is God of gods.”? Peter 
teplies by saying with great frankness, “Each one finds in 
Scripture whatever opinion he wishes in regard to God ;” 
but, “TI accept no other God but Him who created me.’’? 
“One is He, who said to his Wisdom, ‘Let us make man.” 
“Wisdom is united as soul to God.”® Our Lord did not 
proclaim himself to be God, but proclaimed him blessed 
who called him Son of God.” “What is begotten cannot 
be compared with the unbegotten or self-begotten.”7 “Men 
are of the same substance as God, but not gods.” “What 
great matter then for Christ to be called God? for he has 
only what all have.”® “Two things boundless cannot co- 
exist.” | 

Trenzeus,” who wrote at about the same period," declares 
that “Those who assert that Jesus was mere man, begotten 
by Joseph, are in a state of death.” Treneeus, however, like 
some other writers of this and the following generation, 
found his chief opponents, not among the Jewish party, but 
among the Gnostics ; a sect, or succession of sects, which it 
is very difficult to characterize, and whose origin is uncertain, 
yet whose influence upon Christianity during the second and - 
third centuries is very marked. Originating outside Chris- 
tianity, containing elements indeed of “Platonic philosophy, 
Jewish theology, and Oriental theosophy,”” Gnosticism 
seems to have appropriated the facts and truths of Christ- 
lanity to itself, and to have come to its full development 
within the Christian Church.“ Its fundamental principle 
being, perhaps, the eternal antagonism of spirit and matter, 


1EX. Xx: 28. 2Deut. x: 17: ®Clem. Hom. p. 10. ‘pal ae 12. 
Cpr 2p. bees ep lie °p. 17. 1° Died about 202, u 180. 2°Ireneus | 
T. 320. 38 Baur’s Chris. 1: 16], 14 Hase’s Hist. of Chris. Church, p. 76. 


35 


and the complete separation therefore of God from the 
world, its immediate influence upon Christianity showed 
itself chiefly in a tendency to melt away the outward cir- 
cumstances of Christ’s life, and etherialize his word, until, 
according to the views of the Fathers, nothing specifically 
Christian remained. It also brought a new interpretation to 
bear upon the doctrine of the Logos, which threatened, 
unless resisted, to place God and Christ farther than ever 
apart. So at least many of the Fathers felt, as we judge 
from the bitter denunciations contained in the writings of this 
period against those who teach that there are two gods, not 
one; and it is to this that Irenzeus refers in the following pas- 
sage: “John teaches that there is but one God, who made 
all things by his Word; they allegorize that the Creator was 
_ one, the Father of the Lord another ; the Son of the Creator 
one; but Christ from above another.”* To put this Gnostic 
thought in plain terms; Jesus was the Son of the God who 
made the earth; but above that God was the Supreme God 
from whom came the Word, which entered into the visible 
Jesus and made him Christ. 

Almost cotemporary with Irenzus was the Carthaginian 
Tertullian,? who attacked, among other errors, the tendency 
of Gnosticism, hardly less dangerous than its Dualism, to 
subordinate the outward form and historical incidents of 
Christianity to the inward spiritual principle. “To its view,” 
says Baur,® “reality was little, idea everything.” Hence 
the sect called the Docetze; who held that there was no real 
Jesus, but only a seeming person, his body being not flesh 


and blood, but a phantasm. Some theory of this kind seems | 


1<¢ Against Heresies,” 1: 287. * About A. D. 150 to 220. 2 Christen- 
thum 1: 213. 


36 


to have been current before the New Testament was finished. 
“ Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in 
the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not that 
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.?! In Ter- 
tullian’s time the chief representative of this sect seems to 
have been Marcion, whom’ Tertullian charges with saying, 

“ Away with that plaguy taxing of Cesar, and the scanty 
inn, and the squalid swaddling-clothes, and the hard stable. 
We do not care a jot for that multitude of the heavenly 
host who praised their God at night. Let the shepherds 
take better care of their flock, and let the wise men spare 
their legs so long a journey. Let Herod too mend his man- 


+ 


ners.”* These jeers are silenced by proving, or declaring, 
that the “flesh of Christ is precisely as our flesh,” that 
“Christ is man’s flesh with God’s spirit.”° In defence of 
which Tertullian quotes Matthew, Romans and Galatians,! 

and disposes of Marcion, in true theological style, by calling 
him “ fouler than any Seythian.” 

According to Tertullian, the greater number of believers 
still held Christ to be a man, on ithe ground that to call him 
God was to have two gods. “ ae people,” he says, 
“think of Christ as a man.”> “The simple, who constitute 
the majority of the believers, are startled on the ground that 
their rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s 
plurality of gods to the one only true God.”* “We wor- 
ship God through Christ. Count Christ a man if you 
please.”’? | 

Tertullian is of chief interest to us, however, as béing the - 


first (so far as I can find), to introduce the name or idea of 


11 J.1v: 2, 3. 2Tertullian m: 165. 2'p.-201.° 4 po 210.) Sr Ola oars 


37 


a Trinity into Christian theology.”* Many Christian writers 
before Tertullian, as we have seen, had spoken of the Son as 
partaking of the divine nature, and being in a certain sense 
God, though always subordinate to the Supreme Being ; many 
had spoken of the Holy Spirit; but of a threefold form of 
Deity, or of any trinity in the divine essence, they had been 
as silent as are the Scriptures themselves. It is curious 
too, to see, even when the thought once suggested itself, how 
incidentally it arose, and how little impression it seemed to 
make upon the mind that originated it. No one could be 
less aware than Tertullian that the new word he was using 
was to be on men’s lips for centuries as the central mystery 
of the Christian faith. 

In answer to one Praxeas, who declared that Christ being 
God, “it was God himself who was born of the Virgin,” 
Tertullian was led to define his faith more closely. ‘“ We 
believe there is only one God; That this one only God has 
also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from himself, and 
by whom all things were made. Him to have been sent by 
the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her, 
being both man and God, and to have been called by name 
Jesus Christ. He sent also from heaven the Holy Ghost, 
sanctifier of those who believe in the Father, and in the 
Son, and in the Holy Ghost.”? Soon after he adds, to show 
that the unity of the divine nature is not disturbed, “ All 
these areof One, by unity of substance, while the mystery is 
still guarded which distributes the unity into a trinity, plac- 


ing in their order the three—Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”? 


1The idea was already familiar to both Oriental and Greek thought. 
See Neander’s Dogmas, 1: 181,132. ?Advy. Praxeas, II: 836. *®p. 337. 
6 


38 


How far this apparently accidental thought was from taking ~ 
the full shape of later times, is shown by various passages 
which follow. “ My assertion is, that the Father is one, and 
the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that they are distinct 
from each other ; yet not by way of diversity but by distri- 
bution.” ‘The Father is entire substance, the Son derived 


and subordinate.”? “The Father is not Son, as day is not 


night.” ‘In order to be a husband, I must have a wife ; 
can never myself be my own wite.”? “TJ and my Father are 
one,” according to Tertullian, means not one person, but “ one 
thing.”* As analogies of the trinity of which he speaks, he 
gives “root, tree and fruit ;” fountain, stream, branch ; sun 
ray and apex.‘ 

About A. D. 200, then, the conception of a Trinity found 
its way into Christian speculation. 

So far was this, however, from satisfying the Christian 
mind at once, or making any immediate impression upon 
religious controversy, that less than fifty years after Tertul- 
lian wrote, a four-fold conception of the divine’ nature 
appeared in place of the threefold. For some time it 
remained doubtful whether the great mystery would find its 
solution in a trinity or a quaternity. According to Sabel- 
lius, “the most original and profound thinker among the 
Monarchians,”* probably a pr esbyter in the church about A. 
D. 250, and writing with the same authority as Tertullian, 
behind the Trias (or Trinity), Father, Son and Holy Spirit, 
is the Monas (or Word) itself, of which the Trias is only an 
expression. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are successive 


phases of the Supreme Deity. Christ was only a transient 


1 Adv. Praxeas, 1: p. 349. 2p. 351, 8p. 888. 4 p. 348. ® Neander 1: 
594. 


39 


form of the manifestation of the Logos; “went forth as a 
ray and was withdrawn.” In the end the Trias is to 
resolve itself back into the Monas. The trinity is tran- 
sient ; the unity permanent.’ 

Almost contemporary with Sabellius was Paul of Samosata, 
Bishop of Antioch from 260 to 269, who is interesting to us, 
as making prominent once more the human personality 
of Christ, which seemed in so much danger of being wholly 
forgotten. According to Paul, Christ was a man, and was 
exalted to peculiar union with the divine nature by the illu- 
mination of divine Wisdom. “ Wisdom dwelt in Christ as 
in no other.” ‘The Logos came down to impart itself to 
Christ, then rose again to the Father.” “Christ was not 
God by nature, but became so by progressive develop- 


ment.”2 Paul was deposed in 269, and his name was long 


the synonym for heresy in the Ghurch. Eusebius, writing 


in the next century, says of him, “ He entertained low and 
degrading views of Christ, and taught that he was in nature 
but a common man.”? As both Paul and Sabellius were after- 
wards pronounced heretics, very little is known of them, 
and but few of their works remain. 

A second champion of the Trinity appeared in Origen, 
greatest of the Fathers, yet one whom Orthodoxy is very 
wary in claiming.* Origen seemed to come upon the idea of 


a trinity as accidentally as Tertullian, and dwelt quite as 


little upon it, declaring indeed that the position of the Holy 


Spirit in relation to the Father and Son “needs to be 


enquired into.”> The thought seems to have struck him first 


1 Neander 1: 594-601; Baur 1: 312-315. 2Neander 1: 601-605. ® Euseb. 
Ece. Hist. p. 286. 4 Died about 254. 6 Origen’s Works I: 2. 


40 


in connection with the baptismal formula, of which he says, 
“Indeed, the person of the Holy Spirit was of such dignity 
that baptism was not complete but by authority of the most 
excellent trinity of them all.”! Origen’s view differed from 
preceding theories in this. The Son, as he conceived, though 
distinct from the Father and subordinate to him, yet shares 
his absolute being in having been evolved out of the Father, 
not at any special time, but eternally. God, whether as 
Creator or as Father, must be what he is eternally. The 
eternal necessity of the Father creates the eternal Son2 

Without quoting from Origen further, I cannot take leave 
of him without calling attention to one delightful trait which 
characterizes him almost alone among ecclesiastical writers. 
On whatever point he is speaking, the moment he has told 
us all that Church or Scripture has to say, he adds with the 
utmost simplicity: “beyond this the church doctrine js not 
settled,” or “on these matters there is not sufficient clearness 
in the teachings of the church,” or “here the Scriptures 
give no light.”® Nor can I refrain form quoting, as I close, 
this one characteristic and noble passage ; ‘ God is incompre- 
hensible. Whatever be the knowledge we are able to obtain 
of him, either by perception or by reflection, we must of 
necessity believe that he is by many degrees better than what 
we perceive him to be.’’4 a 


I stop here abruptly; not because the position or doctrine 
of Origen constitutes a turning-point in Christian history, 
but because almost immediately after Origen’s death, and 


partly in consequence of his teachings, the great contest 


1Origen’s Works 1: 34. *Comp. Baur’s Christenthum I: 840. 81; 
Sis wert i 


4] 


arose which ended in the first formal and authoritative enun- 
ciation of Christian doctrine. Meantime, I trust that in this 
somewhat hasty survey of the first three centuries, the fol 


lowing points have been made clear :— 


First. That the doctrine of the Christian church con- 
cerning Christ was not less than three centuries in forming. 

Second. That during this period the range of beliefs and 
ideas concerning him was as wide as now, with this difference, 
that then these beliefs were all equally Orthodox, and one as 
likely as the other to prevail. 

Third. That the origin of the controversy is to be found, 
to go no further back, in the two different views of Christ’s 
nature to be found in the New Testament itself, and dividing 
the church at the beginning. 

Fourth. That in drawing its converts so much more 
largely from the Gentile than from the Jewish world, 
Christianity received inevitably the impress of Gentile 
thought, and that its later growth was, in great measure, 
determined by this fact. 

Finally. That in the middle of the third century, two hun- 
dred years after the death of Christ, it was still doubtful, 
and only to be settled by an imperial council, whether the 
Christian Church should regard its founder as a man among 


men, or as the Lord from Heaven. 


| Gn lel) 


-_ 


FereGriaUe hen DEY. 


JANUARY 18, 1874. 


ARIANISM AND THE COUNCIL OF NICE. 


Tue last lecture, although bringing down the controversy 
concerning Christ’s nature beyond the middle of the third 
century, left the great question still undecided. The Christ- 
ian world, more and more forgetful of its Jewish antecedents, 
impregnated with Greek thought, and growing familiar 
with the current ideas and terms of religious philosophy, 
had learned to call Christ God, but had as yet gone no 
further. The term God in those days being constantly used 
to mean simply a divine being, the question still remained in 
what sense Christ was God, and, if God, in what relation he 
stood to the Supreme Deity. So far as this question was 
concerned, the two centuries had been spent, as we have 
seen, in showing how Christ was God, without on the one 
hand making him a mere shadow or reflection of Deity ; or, 
on the other hand making two gods. How serious both 
these dangers were then considered the quotations already 
given have amply proved. We are now to see how the con- 
troversy reached its first solution; and how, out of such 
conflicting ideas, the first specific doctrine was enunciated 


concerning the relation of Christ to God. 


44 


It was quite in character that the agitation which was so 
protoundly to affect the Christian Church should begin in 
Alexandria, the source of so much of the philosophical and 
religious speculation which acted upon early Christianity. 
As in still remoter ages Egyptian faith profoundly modified 
and re-created Judaism, so in these later days, the Greek 
faith, which had planted itself in Egypt, was to profoundly | 
modify, and almost re-create Christianity. This happened as 
follows :— 

In Alexandria, in the year 318, a heated theological con- 
troversy arose between the Bishop Alexander and one of his - 
presbyters named Arius, whom he charged, in a public 
gathering of his clergy, with holding false doctrines concern- 
ing Christ. Arius retorted by accusing the bishop of Sabel- 
lianism, and defending his own views as more logical and 
orthodox. The excitement arising from this dispute became 
so intense, and the rebellious priest found so many supporters 
in Egypt, Libya and Palestine, that in 321 Alexander sum- 
moned a Synod of Egyptian and Libyan bishops, by whom 
Arius was formally deposed and excommunicated Says 
Alexander, in writing to the Bishop of Constantinople: 
“Arius and Achillas have formed a conspiracy ; they deny 
the divinity of Christ, and declare him on a level with other 
men, asserting that we also are able to become like him, the 
mon of Goody’? “And again, in a -eirculamlerreet to the 
churches, Alexander says, “In our diocese, certain lawless 
and anti-christian men have arisen teaching apostacy ; fore- 
runners of anti-Christ.” This is the execrable character of 


their heresy, &e., &e. 


1 Smith’s Dict. of Biography and Mythology, Art. Arius. 2'Theo- 
doret’s Eccl. History, p. 17. 8 Socrates’ Eccl. History, p. 8. 


: 45 


After this somewhat formidable introduction of the great 
heretic, we are somewhat surprised, on turning to Arius him- 
self, to find how innocent both the man and his doctrines 
seem. Arius, if we may judge from this distance, was not 
even an agitator; and, so far from wishing to change the 
belief of the Christian church, he was employed, as he 
thought, in guarding the Church from the entrance of error. 
He was a parish priest of ascetic habits and intellectual 
tastes, who, amid the conflicting and unsettled theological 
opinions of the day, had adopted those doctrines which 
seemed to him the most faithful interpretation of Scripture 
truth, and which, of course, in the absence of any authorita- 
tive dogmas, had the same title to respect as those of his 
opponents. So little did he consider himself broaching any 
new or revolutionary theory that, on the contrary, he charged 
his bishop, as we have seen, with sharing the errors of Sabel- 
-lius, and addressed a sympathizing bishop to whom he wrote 
an account of his troubles, as “most faithful and orthodox 
Eusebius.” In the same letter, too, he said of certain oppo- 
nents with conscious or unconscious humor: ‘“ These have 
embraced heretical opinions. One says the Son is an effu- 
sion, another that he is an emission, the other that he is 
unbegotten. These are impieties to which we could not lis- 
ten though the heretics should threaten us with a thousand 
deaths.”? 

Nor to our modern thought would there seem to be 
anything very dangerous in his doctrines themselves, so 
far as we can judge them, from the fragmentary remains 


of his writings which the Church has chosen to preserve. 


1Theodoret, p. 27. 


46 


Like many of his predecessors, whom the Church has 
judged less harshly, Arius saw the great danger of 
making Ohrist so absolutely equal with God that there 
would be two gods; a tendency against which he strug- 
gled as persistently as had either Tertullian, or Irensus, 
or Origen before him. His exact feeling in this matter 
shows itself, and the religious tendency which he was 
opposing, appears in such passages as these: “We must 
either suppose two divine original essences, without begin- 
ning and independent of each other, a Dyarchy, or we must 
not shrink from asserting that the Logos had a beginning of 
his existence ; that there was a moment when he did not, as 
yet exist.”1 “ We are persecuted,” he says in his letter to 
Eusebius, “ because we say that the Son had a beginning, 
but that God was without beginning; and that the Son was 
created out of nothing.”? “ We say and believe that the 
Son is not unbegotten, but that he has subsisted before all 
time, and before ages as perfect God, only-begotten and 
unchangeable, and that he existed not before he was begot- 
ten.”®? “The bishop has driven us out of the city as 
Atheists, because we do not concur in what he preaches, viz: 
that the Son is unbegotten as the Father; that he is always 
being begotten, without having been begotten.” 

To put the Arian heresy, with the process of reasoning 
which led to it, into the fewest words, it seems to have been 
this: God is unbegotten. He is God because he is unbegot- 
ten: Whoever is born out of another shares all his quali- 
ties. If Christ then were born (begotten) of God in literal 


sense, he would share, among other divine qualities, the 


1Neander m: 361. 2Theod. p. 30. *Do. *Do. 


‘ye 4 * 


ie TeSys) 


47 


quality of unbegottenness ; would be himself unbegotten. 
Then we should have two Unbegottens; two Absolutes ; 
which is impossible. Consequently Christ was not begotten, 
but was created ; created before all time indeed, yet not 
‘before eternity; created not out of the Father’s being, 
but out of the only other thing possible ; out of nothing.” 
So subtle and purely abstract were the doctrines 
which convulsed Christendom when doctrines were form- 
ing, fifteen hundred years ago. So easily could one 
still speak of Christ as God ‘without being supposed to 
mean the Absolute God. Nothing would seem more 
unlikely to divide the christian church than this meta- 
physical dispute whether the Logos was “ created” or 
was “eternally born.” What might have resulted from 
the controversy under ordinary circumstances, we cannot 
tell. Possibly it would have died of itself within that gen- 
eration, like the hundred equally important disputes which 
had preceded it, and would have been remembered in history 
| simply as the quarrel of two angry priests, but for an 
entirely new element that entered, just at this juncture, into 
theological polemics. This was the political element; or, 
| more exactly, the imperial. For the first time in the history 
| of Christianity, there was a Christian emperor ; and as it 
happened, an emperor as ambitious to distinguish himself in 
the religious as he was in the civil affairs of his realm. 
Constantine, who succeeded to the western throne in 306, 
and became sole emperor in 323, on coming to Constantino- 
ple to make his capital there, and give the city its name, 


found the Eastern church already divided by the Arian 


1Comp. Baur, 1: 344. 


48 


strife, and the Christian religion, which he had lately 
adopted with so much pomp, the subject of popular ridicule 
in the theatres.1 


Taking the matter in hand at once, as an affair which it 


needed but a word from an emperor to settle, he wrote to 


the two combatants an imperial letter, telling them that the 
matter in dispute was “of small or scarcely least import- 
ance ;” that “there was no unvarying standard of judgment 
in us,” that the Scripture passages in question were ‘“inexph- 
cable” at best, and that there was nothing “to prevent their 
communion with each other.”? Wise words, which would 
have spoken well for his judgment and insight had he not so 
soon forgotten them. 

As the quarrel continued to rage in spite of his appeal, 
the emperor determined to summon together all the bishops 
of the church to determine the theological questions involved. 
Hence, in 825, the Council of Nice, not the first Christian 
council, as local gatherings had already been held in differ- 
ent dioceses, but the first universal or Cicumenical Council ; 
as indeed, it was the first moment in the history of the 
church when any authority had existed competent to con- 
vene a general council. The church, for the first time, had 
a head ; and for the first time since Paul and Barnabas were 
summoned from Antioch to J erusalem, it met to determine 
its theological beliefs. 

Indeed, Constantine seems to have been, in very fact, the 
head of the Nicene Council; was quite conscious of the 
dignity of his position, and conducted affairs in imperial 


style throughout. He summoned the bishops, he appointed 


1Socrat. p. 11. 2Soc. p. 15. ° 


, 5 a ee ee ae eee ee Pe 


eee ey ee ee eee 


ee eg, ee ne on ee oe ee 


49 


the place, he assigned a hall in his own palace for their gath- 
ering, he entertained them during their whole stay, he seated 
the more conspicuous prelates at his own table, he entered 
the council-chamber in the full splendor of purple robe and 


imperial diadem, dazzling the unaccustomed eyes of provin- 


cial bishops,’ he took constant and active part in the pro- 


ceedings, he argued the profoundest theological points with 
the most learned bishops, so explaining away the difficulties 
of the Nicene creed, as Eusebius of Cesarea himself assures 
us, that he for one was willing to sign it,’ he produced in the 
end, a degree of unanimity among the three hundred mem- 
bers of the council, which it is safe to say never existed 
among an equal number of excited theologians before or 
since. Indeed, not even after the council had ended, could 
the emperor quench his new-born theologic zeal, or surrender 
the novel delight of debating such lofty themes. No sooner 
had the bishops scattered to their homes than a series of 
imperial letters followed them. He wrote to the Bishop 
of Alexandria, denouncing as “blasphemies against the 
Savior” the identical doctrines which before the council he 
had declared “ of small or scarcely least importance;” he 
wrote a second letter, odering Arius’s books to be burned, 
and those who read them to be put to death; he wrote a 
third letter fixing the doctrine concerning Easter; he wrote 


a fourth letter concerning church-buildings which he feared 


would fall into neglect ; he wrote a fifth letter expressing his 


anxiety about Christ’s sepulchre ; he wrote, as Socrates tells 


us, “other letters of a more oratorical character against 


Arius, exposing him and his doctrines to ridicule.”? 


1Stanley’s East. Church, p. 213. 2p.219. ®Theod.p.45. *Soc. p. 30. 
*Soc. pp. 30-38. 


50 


To return to the council itself; the descriptions show it to 
have been a singular gathering, including all possible shades 
of culture, training and belief. Some features were evi- 
dently peculiar to the times, some remind us at once of the 
theological gatherings of to-day. Here is a description which ~ 
has a singularly familiar sound. “A man was there of 
unsophisticated understanding, who reproved the disputants, 
saying, ‘Christ did not teach us the dialectic art, nor vain 
subtleties, but simplemindedness.’”* One Ascesius there 
was also, a Novatian, as tenacious of the doctrines of his 
sect as any Puritan of the eighteenth century, to whom Con- 
stantine, after trying in vain to soften his rigor, finally said, 
“Ho, ho! Ascesius; plant a ladder and climb up into 


heaven by yourself ;”? 


an incident which gives Gibbon a 
chance to remark, “Most of the Christian sects have, by | 
turns, borrowed the ladder of Ascesius.”? Nor would the 
description of the council be complete without the mention 
of Athanasius, the young deacon of the Alexandrian 
church, who, notwithstanding his subordinate position, was 
yet from the first the recognized leader of the anti-Arian 
movement. He had already been the prominent opponent 
of Arius at Alexandria; and took now a prominent part in 
framing the creed, while his great theological ability, 
together with his unyielding hostility to Arianism when 
afterwards Bishop of Alexandria, has associated his name 
with the whole controversy as closely as that of Arius him- — 
self. 

Of the discussions of the council, and the arguments by 


which the result was reached, no account remains ; notwith- @ 


*S0e, p. 18. 4 Stanley, p. 270. Dec. and Fall, 11: 3 note: 


51 ; 


standing the fact that one of the prominent actors in the 
debate, Eusebius of Caesarea, was the author of an ecclesias- 
tical history, which he must have finished after these events, 
but which he brings to a close the very year before the coun- 
cil was held. Apparenfly there was not much in the debates 
which an ecclesiastical historian cared to record. The char- 
acter of the theological debates is indicated in a measure by 
these passages from Theodoret, who wrote his history before 
the close of the same century : 

“ Arius and his friends drew up a creed which was torn in 
pieces.”? 

“The formulary of Eusebius was brought forth, which 
contained undisguised evidences of his blasphemy. he 
impious writing was torn up.”” 

The only question with these theologians seemed to be, 
which creed should remain untorn. 

This creed of Eusebius, as we learn from his own account, 
was an inoffensive document, drawn up almost entirely in 
Scripture phraseology, and brought forward as a compromise 
measure; asserting positively the divinity of Christ, yet 
avoiding such expressions as were needlessly offensive to the 
Arians’ At first, owing to the high honor in which Euse- 
bius was held, as well as the warm support of the emperor, 
it seemed likely to succeed. No one objected to it; but 
unfortunately it was so eagerly accepted by the Arians that 
their opponents grew suspicious, and concluded, as we have 
seen, that the document was “impious.” 

At last a creed was framed that was not torn. It origi- 


nated in this singular Tay. During the debate over the 


1Dec. and Fall, ur: p. 32. 2p. 33. %Nean. m: 373. 


52 


formulary of Eusebius, a letter from one of the foremost 
Arians had been produced, containing this expression; ‘ To 
say that the Son is of one substance with the Father is 
evidently absurd.”? The letter of course was torn in pieces 
on the spot; but the objectionable phrase was remembered. 
‘“‘ Any expression,” argued the opponents of Arius, “ which 
is especially offensive to the Arians, is on that very account 
the word to be embodied in our creed. If to them the 
phrase ‘of one substance’ is hateful, it is the very phrase 
we want. It will be sure to expel them from the church.” 

Such, at least, was the principle upon which the majority 
“immediately acted. The phrase in question did not cover 
the actual point of the controversy, or solve the questions so 
long at issue; it had not been thought of in advance; it 
expressed the full belief of no single party of the Council ; 
it was not even a Scripture phrase, nor had it the sanction 
of any of the Fathers of the Church, but on the contrary, 
had been pronounced heretical within half a century; but: it 
was one of the few doctrines on which the majority could 
unite, it was a term in which both the Sabellian and the 
tritheistic party could put what meaning they chose, and 
above all, it had been condemned by the Arians in advance, 
and therefore it was accepted.2 The term “of one sub- 
stance” (homoousios) was incorporated into the Nicene 
creed and became its one characteristic symbol. 

This being accomplished, the important work of the coun- 
cil was ended. The emperor’s assent was easily obtained 
the opponents of Arius, of course, gave their signatures 
readily, while of the friends of Arius, only five refused 


1 Stanley, p. 228. *Gibbon, mr: 21; Stanley, p. 228. 


ays) 


their names, and of these five, three were finally persuaded 
to sign. The discreditable fact speaks for itself, and warns 
us, if we would search for moral courage and fidelity to con- 
-vietion, not to go back to the Christian bishops of the fourth 

century. When out of more than three hundred theologians 

representing all shades and antagonisms of religious belief, 
all bnt two give their signatures to a creed which when first 
proposed was met by a storm of angry dissent, we hardly 
need the explanation given in the naive confession of Euse- 
bius: “The Emperor succeeded in bringing them into simi- 


larity of judgment and conformity of opinion on all contro- 


ery shy, eee 


verted points.”? 


The Nicene Oreed, as adopted by the Council, is as fol- 
— lows :— 


‘‘We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things 
both visible and invisible: 

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the 
_ Father, only-begotten that is to say, of the substance of the Father, 

God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, 
being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, 
both things in heaven and things in earth — who for us men and for our 
salvation, came down and was made flesh, and was made man, suffered, 
and rose again on the third day; went up into the heavens, and is come 
again to judge the quick and dead. 

And in the Holy Ghost. — 

But those that say, ‘there was when He was not,’ and ‘before He 
was begotten He was not,’ and that ‘He came into existence from what 

_ was not,’ or who profess that the Son of God is of a different person or 

: substance, or that he is created or changeable, or variable, are MN Be 
_ matized by the Catholic Church.”? 


It is idle, of course, to look to this creed for any ultimate 
_ word concerning the nature of Christ. It was not the last 
-ereed of Christendom, it was the first of many; a creed 


which started more questions than it answered; a creed 


1Soc. p. 20. 2? Stanley, p. 233, 


r 


a4 


which did not even answer the one question submitted to it. 
How purely accidental was the form which the Nicene con- 
fession finally took could hardly be better shown than by 
this single fact. The word homoousios, which constitutes 
the distinctive feature of this creed, is the very term which 
half a century before,! at a synod held at Antioch to deal 
with Panl of Samosata, a heretic of another stamp, was 
formally condemned as unorthodox.? If we wait thirty 
years longer,? we shall find the same word rejected 
by another council, on the following singularly rational 
grounds: “The term homoousios shall not be used, 
because it is not found in the Holy Scripture, and because 
it transcends human knowledge, as none but the Father 
can know how the Son was begotten.” 

Indeed, so far from effecting conformity or harmony in 
the Christian Church, the adoption of the Nicene creed was 
the occasion of more bitter and long-continued strife than 
Christendom had ever known. The humorous side of the 
theological condition which followed is well shown in this 
oft-quoted passage from Gregory of Nyssa, describing what 
he saw in Constantinople. ‘“ Every corner and nook of the 
city is full of men who discuss incomprehensible subjects ; 
the streets, the markets, the people who sell old clothes, 
those who sit at the tables of the money-changers, those who 
deal in provisions. Ask a man how many oboli it comes to, 
he gives you a dogmatic discourse on generated and unre- 
generated being. Inquire the price of bread, you are — 
answered, ‘The Father is greater than the Son, and the Son | 


subordinate to the Father.’ Ask if your bath is ready, you j 


+A. D. 269. > Baur 1: 337; Gibbon ur: 21. 2A, D. 357. 4 Baur rm: 86. 


55 


are answered, ‘The Son of God was ereated from noth- 
ino”! 

But the matter had a far more serious side. The con- 
demned doctrines showed themselves too strong to be sup- 
pressed by a single council, and the events of the following 
half-century were a constant satire upon the assertion of 
Athanasius, “The Word of the Lord which was given in 
the Cicumenical Council of Nicea remaineth forever.” 
That the doctrines of that council represented on the whole, 
the dominant sentiment of the Christian. Church, it would 
be foolish to deny ; for Arianism in the end succumbed, and 
the Nicene confession survived. But the triumph of that 
confession at Wice had slight significance, and was by no 
means accepted at the time as final. It was an imperial 
rather than a religious victory 5 and the same imperial 
influence gave to Arianism afterwards a long period of 
triumph. The decree of the Second Council of Sirmium 
in 357, from which I have already quoted,> shows the extent 
to which this reaction went. ‘Let every one,” says that 
decree, “ hold this as Catholic doctrine, that Father and Son 


are two persons, and that the Son is subordinate to the 


Father.” The fifty years immediately following the Council 


of Nice are dotted with synods; Arian to-day, Athanasian 
to-morrow ; each claiming final authority, each repudiating 
or modifying the work of its predecessor. The historian 
Socrates, enumerates eight of these, with eight distinct 
creeds, between the years 325 and 329. The victory was 
not certain, as we shall see, till the time of Theodosius. 


Athanasius triumphed in the end; nor would I be 


INean. 11: 388n. %Stanley, p. 242. *p. 20. 4 Baur uw: 86. 


Ine 


16) 


supposed to represent his triumph as a misfortune to the 


Church. As between the two men themselves, there is lit- 


tle for us in these days, as we have seen, to choose. Both 
speak a theological language foreign to our ears, both deal 
in subtleties whose importance and interest have long ago 
been lost. So far as concerns the word itself, however, 
which divided them, and the deeper import which that 
word may be made to bear, the world has little reason to 
regret the triumph of Athanasius. If Arius was right, 
then is not only the Son, but all humanity as well, essen- 
tially distinct from the Father. The universe is two-fold, 


not a unit. The human and the divine have no real unity. 


If Athanasius was right, then not only the Son, but all 


humanity as well, is of one essence and spirit with the 
Father. Then the universe is one throughout, with God as 
its centre and its whole; and the vision of an absolute and 
all-embracing unity, embracing God and man, heaven and 
earth, time and eternity, which have haunted thoughtful 
minds in every age, are no phantoms, but a fine reality.! 
One point more and the exact significance of this first 


Christian Creed will be understood. You have already 


noticed, probably, that the Nicene Creed contains no men- | 


tion of a trinity. If you have inferred that because the 
Holy Spirit was mentioned at the close, therefore a 
trinity was virtually there, and was intended to be under- 
stood though not mentioned, a few words will be necessary 
to put the matter in its true light. The Trinity is not in 
the Nicene Creed, either in name or reality. It is no more 
in the Nicene Creed than in the Arian Creed. 


1 Compare Baur un: 97, &e. 


o7 


You will remember that in my last lecture, while quoting 
from Tertullian and Origen, writers of the second and third 
centuries, passages which alluded to a trinity, I spoke of 
these allusions as so incidental in their character as to prove 
that the doctrine, far from being universally accepted, was 
new and unfamiliar. Even with these Fathers, it was less a 
doctrine than a passing idea. Of the “Sacred Trinity,” the 
“Most Holy Trinity,” or of any Trinity which would 
require a capital letter in writing it, | remember no mention ; 
still less of any tri-personality. And now, as it to prove 
that the thought was transient and unformed, three-quarters 
of a century after the death of Origen, a universal council 
of the Christian Church met to establish the creed of 
Christendom, and no mention of a trinity was made. 
Neither in the discussions of the council, nor in the fierce 
controversies which sprung from it, did either party seem to 
have the subject of a trinity on their minds. 

Exactly what the Nicene Creed did was this: It pro- 
nounced the Father and Son of one substance, or co-equal ; 
of the Holy Ghost it simply said, “ We believe in the Holy 
Ghost.” That this was no accidental omission, but that the 
doctrine of the Holy Spirit was at this time really unde- 
termined, the writings of the period clearly show. At the 
Synod of Antioch, in 341, a letter of the Bishops constitut- 
ing the synod speaks of Christ in these terms: ‘The Son, 
God the only-begotten, God of God, Whole of Whole, Only 
of Only, Perfect of Perfect, King of King, Lord of Lord, 
Living Word, Wisdom, Life, True Light, Way of Truth, 
Resurrection, Shepherd, Gate, Unalterable image of the 
Divine substance, Power, Counsel, Glory of the Father ;” 


while the Holy Spirit is dismissed with a single word. 


08 


Gregory of Nazianzen, writing about 380, says: “ Some of 
our theologians consider the Holy Spirit to be a certain 
mode of the Divine agency, others a creature of God, 
others God himself. Others say they do not know which of 
the two opinions they ought to adopt, out of reverence for 
the Holy Scriptures, which have not clearly explained this 
point.” Hilary of Poictiers, who spent his life in the midst 
of the Arian controversy, as one of the supporters of 
Athanasius, “held it best to remain fast by simple Scrip- 
ture doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit, which as it seemed 
to him, furnished no materials for exact logical definition of 
this doctrine. | 

Nothing in all history is more obvious than the gradual 
evolution of the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity. As 
the Christian world was exactly three hundred and twenty- 
five years in determining that the Father and Son are 
co-equal and co-substantial, so it was precisely fifty-five years 
longer in determining that the Holy Spirit is a third factor 
equal to both the others. In the edict of the Emperor 
Theodosius, issued on his own authority, in 380, confirmed 
by the general council of Constantinople in 381, are for the 
first time these words: “ According to the discipline of the 
Apostles, and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe the 
Sole Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
under.an equal majesty and a pious Trinity. We authorize 
the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic 
Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant 
madmen, we brand them with the impious name of 
Heretics.” 


‘Chris. Examiner, March, 1860, p. 249. 2 Chris. Ex. p. 250. 


o9 


Finally, in what was long considered, and what is still 

called, the Creed of Athanasius, written however, by some 
unknown hand a full century after Athanasius’s death,* the 
Trinity received its complete doctrinal statement, and was 
given in such fulness of detail as to leave no possibility of 
further misunderstanding. ‘The Catholic faith is, that we 
adore One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither 
confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. = * 
‘ The Father is one person, the Son is one 
person, the Holy Ghost is one person, yet the Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost are one God. = ° ig The 
Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Ghost is 
uncreated; the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy 
Ghost is God; yet are there not three gods but One God. 
ok as : * * Which faith, except every 
one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall 
perish everlastingly.” 

It is to be remembered, however, that this creed had no 
connection either with Athanasius or with Nice, but came 
more than a century later. Before that century was past, 
or the definitions of the Athanasian creed were possible, a 
preliminary question arose, which brought fresh strife into 
the Church, and could only be answered by a new series 
of Councils. 


_ 


1Stanley, p. 347. 


DEOL URE IV. 


FEBRUARY 1, 1874. 


THE NESTORIAN CONTROVERSY. 


Ar the beginning of the fifth century, the doctrine of 
the Christian Church, so far at least as the nature of its 
founder was concerned, was to all appearance finally 
determined. At one General Council in 325, the Son had 
been pronounced co-equal, even in substance, with the 
Father; at the Second General Council in 381, the Holy 
Spirit had been pronounced co-equal with Father and Son; 
and thus the idea of a Trinity, vaguely present in the 
second century to the minds of a Tertullian and an Origen, 
had taken at last complete dogmatic form. What further 
controversy was possible? “None,” would have been the 
answer, no doubt, of the actors in each council. In deter- 
mining the special doctrine which pressed for instant solu- 
tion, and condemning the special heresy which threatened 
the unity of the hour, they seemed to themselves, unques- 
tionably, to be uttering the final decision of the Church. 
How Athanasius himself regarded the decree of Nice 
appears from the words which I quoted in my last lecture ; 
“The Word of the Lord which was given in the Gcumeni- | 


eal Council of Nicsea remaineth forever.” As a matter of 
9 


62 


fact, however, each of those early doctrinal decisions simply 
brought new differences to light, and rendered further and 
more exact decisions necessary. To put New Testament 
religion into doctrinal form proved no easy task. The First 
Council necessitated the Second; the Second, as we shall 
see, called for a Third and a Fourth. 

The question left unanswered by the first two councils is 
plain at once. The Son is equal to the Father, said the 
Synod of Nice; not subordinate, as Origen and the early 
Fathers, following John and Panl, had said; not of another 
substance, as Arius claimed, but in all respects God. 
But what becomes then of the Auman nature of Christ ? 
He seemed in all respects like a man. He had a human 
body and mind, human mother, brothers and sisters, was 
born, lived and died, grew out of infancy and childhood 
into manhood, increased in wisdom, and was subject to 
emotion, affection and suffering. Was all this, as the 
earlier heretics had declared, only apparent, not real? Or 
if real, how is this humanity in Christ connected with his 
Deity? In a word, while the dogma of the two councils 
had determined, however incomprehensibly, the relation of 
Christ to God, it had left undetermined the relation of the 
two natures in Christ himself. In making the Son and 
Father one, it seemed to be making the Son two. 

Such was the question still to be answered; and such the 
source of /the fierce disputes which divided the church 
during the first half of the fitth century. Extending, vir- 
tually, from the Council of Constantinople in 881, to the 
Council of Chalcedon in 451, and bearing at different 
periods of its progress, the several names of Nestorian, 


Eutychian, and Monophysite, it was in reality, one long 


63 


contest to determine the relation between the divine and 
human natures in Christ. To use the later phraseology of 
the church, the doctrine of -the Trinity must be supple- 
mented by the doctrine of the Incarnation; and the con- 
struction of this latter doctrine was the problem of the fifth 
eentury. If the problem seems to us now to have been 
solved by peculiar methods, and the strife settled by ques- 
tionable weapons, if the cries of infuriated monks, the yells 
of hostile parties, or the arms of Imperial soldiery, seem 
hardly the arguments for determining the subtler relations, 
or the profounder mysteries of the Divine Being, we can 
only accept this as a necessary condition of formulating 
religious doctrines in a half-barbarous age. 

The controversy began in Constantinople about the year 
428, taking at first what seems to us a singularly trivial 
form. When the exact definition of eternal mysteries is 
once entered upon, however, the most puerile questions 
must be answered. If Christ was God, said those who were 
jealous of his Deity, then it was God who was born in Beth- 
lehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary. Then Mary was not 
simply the mother of Jesus, she was in literal fact the 
“Mother of God.” 

Whether this phrase, when first spoken, had the same 
grossly anthropomorphic sound which it bears to our ears, we 
cannot tell. Apparently, it was employed for a long time 
without exciting any attention; and certainly, at the begin- 
ning of the fifth century the phrase was in familiar use, 
__ being especially in vogue in the Alexandrian Church, where 
the Athanasian spirit still prevailed, and where for a long 
time the allegorizing and transcendental school of Christian 


thought found its home. In Antioch, on the contrary, 


64 


the old abode of Arianism, where a more critical and 
rationalistic spirit seems to have gained entrance, and a 
scientific method of Scripture. interpretation to have won 
the day against the allegorical, the phrase .gave great 
offence, and was regarded as a virtual denial of Christ’s 
humanity.’ 

A verbal controversy over this question had already 
begun among the Eastern churches, when in 428, Nestorius, 
a presbyter of Antioch, in full sympathy with the tenden- 
cies of that school, was made Patriarch ot Constantinople. 
Almost immediately after his entrance upon the office, one 
of his presbyters, alarmed at the spreading heresy, and 
assured beforehand, perhaps, of his Patriarch’s sympathy, 
took occasion to say in public discourse, “ Let no one style 
Mary ‘Mother of God;’ for Mary was human, and it is 
impossible for God to be born of a human being.”? The 
excitement caused by this seems to have been intense, and 
the part taken in it by the new Patriarch is best shown by 
the language of one of the two earliest historians of these 
events, Evagrius2 “Then Nestorius, that God-assaulting 
tongue, that second conclave of Caiaphas, that work-shop 
of blasphemy, in whose case Christ is again made the sub- 
ject of bargain and sale, by having his natures divided and 
torn asunder, x - * * * * * * 
vomited forth the venom of his soul, avouching ‘I could 
never be induced to call that God which admitted of being 
two months old or three months old.’ ”* 


Reducing this excited rhetoric to simple fact, Nestorius 


—_—— — 


1 Bauer, 1: 108; Neander’s Hist. of Chris. Dogmas, 1: 325. ?Eva- | | 


grius’s Eccles. Hist. p. 258. % Writing about 570. *Evag. Bohn’s Edit. 
pp. 257, 258. 


65 


seems to have met the emergency with singular moderation 
and dignity, expounding in several discourses,’ the true 
nature of Christ, by no means denying his divinity, but dis- 
tincuishing between the Logos and the man Jesus,’ and 
declaring, in terms hardly distinguishable from those in 
which the Orthodox doctrine was itself finally framed, that 
in Christ were two natures, both Deity and Humanity, 
united together in closest intimacy. As the best escape 
from the difficulty, he proposed that Mary should be called 
neither Mother of God, nor Mother of man, but “ Mother 
of Christ.’”® 

To quiet the agitation and close the controversy, the 
Emperor Theodosius followed the example of the first 
Theodosius, and of Constantine, by summoning a general 
council, which met at Ephesus in 431, and was styled the 
Third GEcumenical Council. The council was not directed, 
as before, by the Emperor in person ; yet, although left 
entirely to the Ecclesiastics, it bore hardly more the char- 
acter of a thoughtful assembly, deliberating upon religious 
themes, than did that at Constantinople or at Nice. The 
opponent of Nestorius, and leader of the opposite party, 
was the notorious Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, that zealous 
defender of a spiritual Christianity whom the church has 
placed among its saints, but who before the council of 
Ephesus, had chiefly signalized himself by levelling all the 
Jewish synagogues in Alexandria with the ground, and by 
causing the beautiful Pagan maiden, and gifted teacher of 
Greek philosophy, Hypatia, to be torn from her chariot 


and brutally murdered in the streets of Alexandria. To 


1Nean. Hist. 1: 447. 2 Socrates, p. 371. ° Nean. Hist. 1m: 452. 


66 


Cyril’s thought, it was equal blasphemy to deny that 
Mary was “ Mother of God,” and to teach the doctrines of 
Plato and Aristotle; and he hastened to Ephesus, with a 
large following of mariners, slaves, and fanatic monks, to 
overthrow the Nestorian heresy.1. How far he was infln- 
enced in his action by the desire to remove a rival who, as 
Patriarch of Constantinople, disputed with him the primacy 
of the East, we can only conjecture. 

Of the debates in the Council of Ephesus, as in the case 
of previous councils, we are told little or nothing. The 
real question at issue, as we have seen, was between making 
the Logos and the man Jesus two distinct persons, and 
making the two so completely one that the humanity 
became a mere name. The course of theological debate on 
this theme seems to have been the following: John of 
Antioch with his attendant bishops, being somewhat belated _ 
in his journey, Cyril, who was already on the ground, 
refused to wait for him, called together those who were 
present and deposed Nestorius, condemning his doctrine. 
Nestorius, denying Cyril’s authority, withdrew with his 
friends and deposed Cyril. John of Antioch on arriving 
five days later, convened his priests at once and finally 
deposed Cyril once more; whereupon Cyril summoned his 
bishops again and deposed John: These results were then 
reported to the Emperor, who, although no enemy to Nesto- 
rius or his doctrine, was yet persuaded to ratify his deposi- 
tion, and bring about a reconciliation between John and 
Cyril. Nestorius, although showing a conciliatory spirit to 
the end, and even offering to accept the disputed term,” yet 


1 Gibbon, vi: 21. 2 Evag. p. 261; Soc. vir: p. 373. 


“a 


67 


proved unequal to the combinations made against him in 


Alexandria, Rome and Antioch, was finally banished and 


‘died in exile. The Council of Ephesus thus put the stamp 


of heresy on the doctrine of two distinct natures in Christ, 
and sanctioned the phrase “ Mother of God.” 

The next disturbance of the unity of the church was 
caused about fifteen years later, by one Eutyches, an arclii- 
mandrite or abbot of Constantinople. Taking the Council 
of Ephesus apparently at its word, and so holding Mary to 
be the Mother of God, he seems to have come to the very 
natural conclusion, in which he had many earlier theolo- 
gians of high repute to sustain him, that if it was God who 
was born of the Virgin, it could not have been man; that 
from the moment when the Logos entered into the flesh, the 
human became absorbed in the divine, and had thenceforth 
no real existence. ‘I allow,” said Eutyches, “that the 
Lord was produced from two natures before their union, but 
I confess only one nature after their union.”? Christ then 
was of one nature only, and that a divine nature. Christ 
was really and exclusively God.’ | 

But church doctrines and decrees of councils are not 
to be taken so literally, or interpreted by such obstinate 


logic. Although for the purpose of condemning Nestorius, 


per it might be very well to declare that God himself was 


born of the Virgin, yet what was to be done with cer- 


tain embarrassing conclusions — to which that doctrine 
pointed? If it was God who was born, then it was cer- 
tainly God who suffered, and God also who died upon the 
cross. Was the church ready for this confession 4 


_ 1Eyagrius, 267. *Baur, mu: 113, 114. 


68 


Not wholly, it seemed. Indeed, the agitation caused in 
Constantinople in 448, when Eutyches declared that there 
was only one nature in Christ, could only be compared with 
the agitation in Constantinople in 428, when Nestorius 
declared that there were two natures in Christ. There 
were not two, it seems; neither was there but one. To 
common minds the position would seem to be critical; and 
the religion which consists in verbal definitions to be driven 
at last to the wall. But to an Imperial church, sustained by 
the strong arm of military power, everything is possible; 
and although it required two more councils to do it, the 
impossible was finally achieved. 

The position taken by Eutyches, as I have said, caused 
great excitement in Constantinople, and induced the Patri- 
arch: Flavian to summon a local synod by which Eutyches 
was condemned, and the doctrine of one nature declared 
heresy. Eutyches, however, who happened to have friends 
at the Imperial court, appealed from this decree to a 
general council, and another council was therefore sum- 
moned to meet once more in Ephesus, in 449. The picture 
of this council, known to history by the significant name of 
the “ Robber Council,” is so vividly sketched by one of the 
earlier historians (Evagrius), and is so significant, even in 
its excesses, of the character of those theological controver- 
sies out of which church doctrine has been born, that I am 
led to describe it in as much detail as my space will allow. 

The leader of the council was the successor of Cyril, the 
hardly less ferocious Dioscurus of Alexandria. Sympathiz- 
ing naturally with the views of Eutyches, and holding very 
justly, that in his condemnation Cyril was himself con- 


demned, Dioscurus went to Ephesus bent simply upon rein- 


69 


stating Eutyches at whatever cost, and by whatever 
methods. He was not unattended; but, like Cyril before 
_ hin, took with him what Evagrius calls a “ disorderly rab- 
| ple,”! consisting of Asiatic veterans, a band of archers, and 
a crowd of turbulent monks, who carried consternation to 
the hearts of the peaceful inhabitants of Ephesus, and did 
brave service for their leader throughout the debates.’ 

The order of proceedings seems to have been: first, to 
| expel from the chamber all reporters not belonging to the 

party of Dioscurus ;* then to read the acts of the Synod of 
Constantinople by which Eutyches had been condemned. 
_ This reading was constantly interrupted by the howls of 
- Dioscurus’s Egyptian monks, who took this method of show- 
ing their horror of heresy, and their zeal for a pure Chris- 
tianity. Basil, Bishop of Seleucia, being reported as saying 
“TJ worship the one Lord Jesus Christ * * ‘ in 
two natures,” the monks shouted ‘Nestorian! Tear him 
asunder! Burn him alive! Ashe divided so let him be 
divided!” the most fearful pun, I suppose, on record. 
When the reading was finished, and condemnation pro- 
nounced upon the former Synod, these shouts were 
‘yedoubled. ‘“ Anathema to him that parts ! Anathema to 
him that divides! Drive out, burn, tear, cut asunder, mas- 
sacre all who hold two natures! »4 The noisy monks were 
not restrained by the presiding officer; on the contrary, 
those who could not “roar” loud enough to add to the 
clamor, were besought by Dioscurus himself to “stretch out 


their hands” in token of assent and encouragement. 


1Bvag. p. 290. 2%Gibbon, vi : 26, 28. 3 Robertson’s Hist. of Ch. 
Church, 1: p. 481. *Evag. p. 320; Robertson I: 481; Gibbon VI: 28. 
10 


70 


Nor were these the only means employed by the politic | 
Dioscurus to accomplish the restoration of Eutyches. A 
letter to the council in condemnation of Eutyches, from 
Leo, Bishop of Rome, instead of being publicly read, was 
quietly suppressed. Forged passages were introduced into — 
the acts as finally passed; a fact which was elicited at the 
next council by an examination of the actors in this, and of — 
which Stephen, Bishop of Ephesus, gives the following 
interesting explanation. ‘The notaries of Dioscurus seized 
the fingers of my notaries, so that they were in danger of 
most grievous treatment.”? Finally, when the final vote. 
was to be taken, and the prelates embraced the knees of — 
Dioscurus, entreating him to spare them the necessity of 
deposing their Patriarch for condemning Eutyches, Dios- 
curus exclaimed, ‘ Do you mean to raise a sedition? Where 
are the officers?” Instantly a furious multitude of monks 
and soldiers with swords, clubs and chains, burst into the 
church, driving the terrified bishops into the corners, and 
under the tables and seats, from which they were not suf-— 
fered to emerge until they had promised to sign a blank 
paper, which was afterwards filled out with the deposition of . 
Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople. The unhappy Fla-— 
vian, who was present, suffered indignities greater than 
deposition. According to the testimony of two different — 
historians, he was so beaten, kicked and stamped upon by | 
the Patriarch of Alexandria that he died of his injuries. 
Whoever inflicted the wounds, it is quite certain that within | 
three days he was dead. 

Thus ended the second council of Ephesus, by which the 


__—.. 


1Evag. p. 319. 2 Gibbon, vr: 29; Robertson. 


71 


decrees of the Synod of Constantinople were reversed, and 
the doctrine of Eutyches, which for a year had been heresy, 
was pronounced Orthodox. According to the Orthodoxy of 
449, Christ had not two natures, he had but one. I take 
pleasure in closing the narrative with the words of Evag- 
rius: “Here let not any of the deluded worshippers of 
idols presume to sneer, as if it were the business of suc- 
coeding councils to depose their predecessors, and to be ever 
devising some additions to our faith.”+ This protest 
becomes even more opportune, two years later, after the 
Council of Chalcedon. 

Entire acquiescence in an edict thus procured was hardly 
to be looked for even in an age accustomed to such methods 
of religious disputes; still less as immediately after the 
council, a change in the Imperial household brought about a 
change in the theological atmosphere of the East. In the 
year 450 Theodosius died, and Marcion became Emperor ; 
which means that the Alexandrian church passed out of 
favor, and Eutychian doctrines were consequently  dis- 
credited at court. After two years of ill-gotten triumph, 
the Monophysite theory of Christ’s nature must cease to be 
the Orthodox faith of Christendom. 

In 451, the influence of Leo, Bishop of Rome, in whom 
the coming power of the Papacy was already foreshadowed, 
and whose letter to the previous council had been so arbi- 
trarily suppressed, caused the Fourth General Council to be 
summoned at Chalcedon, expressly to reverse the decrees of 
Ephesus, and end the weary and disgraceful strife over the 
nature of Christ. 


os 


1 Evag. p. 270. 


72 


The proceedings of this council do not seem to have | 
differed essentially from those of its predecessors, and cer- 
tainly bore no closer resemblance to the acts of a delibera- 
tive assembly, even if it won no such unenviable name. 
Not only was it so constituted that its decisions were secure 
in advance,’ but many of the same furious and intimidating 
cries were heard which had struck terror to the hearts of the 
Nestorian prelates at Ephesus. The robbers seemed to be 
still in council. When the Nicene creed, which this council 
reafirmed with certain additions, was read, the bishops 
shouted “This is the faith of the Orthodox! thus we all 
believe! thus does Pope Leo believe! thus did Christ 
believe! thus has the Pope expounded.”? When the 
“Epistle of the divine Cyril” was read, the whole Synod 
exclaimed, “Thus do we all believe! Anathema to him 
that divides and to him that confounds! (the theology of 
these howls had advanced somewhat). This is the faith of 
Leo! Thus do we all believe! As Cyril believed so do 
we!”® “But few are exclaiming,” complained one of the 
prelates, “the Synod is not speaking.” Whereupon the 
Oriental bishops cried “Egyptians to exile!” Illyrians : 
“We entreat compassion on all.” Orientals: “ Egyptians 
to exile!” TIllyrians: “We entreat compassion.”  Orien- 
tals: “ Dioscurus to exile! Egyptians to exile! The heretic 
to exile!” Tllyrians: “ We have all erred! Indulgence to 
all! Dioscurus to the Synod! Dioscurus to the churches Ee! 
Finally, when Dioscurus was deposed: “ Anathema to Dios- 
curus! Christ has deposed Dioscurus! Cast out such 


‘Hase’s Hist. of Church. *Evag. p. 328. %Do. p. 380. 4Do. p: 332. 


73 


_ persons ! Away with the outrage! Away with the infamy 
from the Synod! ”* 
To depose and condemn Dioscurus was comparatively 


easy, for passion and ambition were strong ; but to prepare 


a new statement of faith which should meet the views of all 


ei SA a Dl OE OEE a I IR GER MR PI a AIM go" + a Ee i 


parties, and steer a clear course between opposing heresies, 
was not so easy, and seems to have been accomplished only 
after a hint from the Emperor that “unless the bishops 
framed a rule of faith they might be assured that the Synod 
would be held at the West.”? Finally, at the fifth or sixth 
meeting of the council, the new formula was announced, 
reaffirming the Edict of Nice, and adding, with a great 
deal beside, the following words: “Since some reject the 
term ‘ Mother of God,’ others mould into one the natures of 
the flesh and of the Godhead : ¢ 7 . we 
confess one and the same Son, at the same time perfect in 
‘manhood, and perfect in Godhead, born of Mary, Mother of 


God, and made known in two natures without confusion, 


PPO LPO OE 


Page 


iam 


conversion, severance, separation ; the differences of nature 
by no means annulled by union, but the peculiar essence of 


~ each preserved and conspiring in one person and one subsist- 
3 


aoe eee 


SS ee 


ence, not parted or severed into two. 
And now what exact doctrine do we find beneath this 
profusion of words / How did the Council of Chalcedon 
solve the apparently insoluble problem which, as we have 
seen, was given it? To say that Christ was of one nature, 
as you remember, would be Eutychian; to say that he was 
of two natures would be Nestorian. How did the council 


escape this Scylla and Charybdis of heresy 4 


Se 


ee 


lEyag. p. 335. ? Do. p. 386. 3 Do. p. 300. 


SSS 


74 


By the simplest process possible. It accepted both state- 
ments and declared them one. Creating for the purpose a 
convenient distinction between nature and person: it 
declared that in Christ were ¢wo natures in one person. 
Christ is not a mixture of Deity and humanity, no more is 
he one to the exclusion of the other; he is at once perfect 
God and perfect man, as divine as Deity, as human as — 
humanity. Such, since the Council of Chalcedon, has been 
tue creed of Christian Orthodoxy. 

In other words, standing between these two heresies, the 
new creed stretched out loving arms and embraced them 
both. It escaped each extreme by rushing to the other; it 
reconciled two opposites by putting them hand in hand; it 
escaped a palpable inconsistency by calmly declaring that 


the inconsistency did not exist. The Creed of Chalcedon is _ 


as Nestorian as Nestorius, it is as Eutychian as Eutyches, it 


attirms the two natures as broadly as the one, it declares the . 
one nature (under the name of person), as plainly as the 
other, and with sublime effrontery, asserts that two doctrines, 
each of which excludes the other, and each of which in turn 
had been condemned as heresy, and both of which no human 
mind has ever succeeded in grasping at once, are both 
equally true. The lesson thus taught was well learned. 
The so-called Athanasian Oreed, of which I have already 
spoken, which was composed after this period, and perhaps 
grew out of this very controversy, and which stands to-day — 
as the most complete enunciation of the Trinitarian — J 
faith, consists of little else than a series of mutually-destruc- 7 
tive propositions like the above, made one by solemnly pro- — 
nouncing them go. * By “ate repetition of positive and 


negative propositions,” Says an Orthodox historian of 


75 


doctrines, “its perpetual assertion and then again denial of 
_ its propositions, the mystery of the doctrine is presented as 
_ it were in hieroglyphics, as if to confound the understand- 
ing.”! “As is the Father, so is the Son, so also the Holy 
Ghost. The Father is not created; the Son is not created ; 
the Holy Ghost is not created. : - The Father is 
eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Ghost is eternal: yet 
there are not three Eternals; there is one Eternal. So there 


are not three Uncreated; there is one Uncreated. In like 


manner, the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the 
Holy Ghost is almighty ; yet there are not three Almighties, 
there is one Almighty. In like manner the Father is God, 
_ the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God; yet are there not 
three Gods, there is one God. In like manner the Father is 
Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord; yet are 
there not three Lords, there is one Lord. It is also the true 
faith that we confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of 
God is God and man, Perfect God and Perfect man. 
_ Like the Father in his Deity, less than the Father in his 
humanity. And although God and man, yet is he not two, 
put one Christ. One, not by confusion of substance, but in 


aad A SO alee RT act Gin tee aie 


ig gp OE ip REET ha 


_ the unity of Person.”? 


How entirely arbitrary, and how foreign to New Testa- 
ment thought is the distinction here made between “ sub- 
stance ” and “ person,” or between “nature” and “ person,” 
is proved, not only by the fact that the distinction now for 
the first time appears, but also by the great difficulty experi- 
enced in finding words to express the distinction. The 


Greek word here used for “person” (hypostasis), means 


1Hagenbach’s Hist. of Doctrines, 1: 269. *Creed of Athanasius. 


76 


originally the same as that used for substance (ousia). The 
true meaning of both is substance, essence, being. The cor- 
rect translation of Heb. 1: 8, the only passage in the New 
Testament where hypostasis is found in connection with 
Christ, is “image of his being.” As late as in the Nicene 
Creed the two words are placed side by side, as if exact 
equivalents, “those that say that the Son of God is of a dit- 
ferent being or substance, &c. &e.,” (hypostasis or onsia). 
Again, how slightly the word translated “ nature” (physis) 
originally differed from that translated “ person,” is sufti- 
ciently proved by the fact that while the Confession of Nice 
employs the former (physis) to express that which distin- 
guishes the one nature from the other, and the latter (hypos- 
tasis) to express that which both have in common, the Con- 
fession of Chalcedon exactly reverses this use of the two 
words. Between 325 and 451, the necessities of Christian 
theology, demanding certain distinctions which had never 
before been made, had determined that hypostasis should 
henceforth mean person; physis, nature; ousia, substance ; 
and that in this distinction of names the doctrine of the 
Trinity should rest. 

That the Council of Chalcedon did not end this contro- 
versy, or that its creed was no more accepted as a finality 
than were the many which had preceded it, I need hardly 
assure you. Indeed, the descriptive term Monophysite (“of | 
one nature”), first came into vogue at this time, to designate 
the large party in the church, which, following in the steps 
of Eutyches, still insisted that two natures made two per- 


sons, and that to call Christ one person was equivalent to 


1 Hagenbach, 1: 279; also Stanley’s East. Church, pp. 231, 234. 


rj 


assigning him a single nature. I have space here only for 
names; yet the very titles of the various parties. which 
‘sprang up in this same century have a certain significance, as 


showing through what giddy regions and between what 


impalpable distinctions, theology was then holding its 
unsteady course. Among the sects whose names have sur- 
vived, are the Theopaschites, who declared that ‘ God was 
crucified,” a doctrine which in 533 was admitted into an Or- 
thodox Oonfession,! the Aphthartodocetes and Phartolatres, 
the latter asserting, the former denying that Christ’s body 
was perishable ; the Actistetes and Ktistolatres, the former 
asserting, the latter denying that Christ’s body, after the 
entrance of the Holy Ghost, was uncreated; the Agnoetes 
who claimed that if Christ was really man like us, he could 
not have been omniscient.” 

- The Monophysite faith, as such, can be found to-day, I 
believe, only in the churches of the East; its followers 
being called, in Alexandria, Copts, in Armenia, Armenians, 
in Syria and Mesopotamia, Jacobites.2 Without its formi- 
dable name, however, it can easily be encountered in 
any Orthodox community in Christendom; this being the 
oo form of error, apparently, into which the new convert 
to Orthodoxy is most liable to fall before his natural reason 
has learned to thread the intricate path which in Orthodox 
regions leads between nature on the one hand, and person 
on the other.* 

Tam aware how uninviting and how bewildering must 
seem to many of you these controversies of an age fortu- 
nately long gone by; nor can I hope that I have made as 


‘Baur, m: 118. ?Baur, m: 120. *Gieseler’s Church Hist. 1: 327. 
*Comp. Chris. Examiner, 1860, p. 265. 
igi 


78 


clear to you as I would like the beating which they have 
upon the faith of Christendom to- day. To show this as 
plainly as possible, however, let me present once more, in a 
few words, the ground over which I have just tried to lead 
you. 

The doctrine of the Trinity, as half-stated at Nice in 325, 
and completed at Constantinople in 381, left still undecided — 
the relation of the divine and human natures in Christ. 
Two views were possible, and were each in turn held and 
considered Orthodox; according to the one the divine and 
the human in Christ were wholly distinct, though intimately 
united: according to the other, the divine nature alone was 
real, while the humanity became absorbed and disappeared. 
To take the one ‘position seemed to make two beings instead 
of one; to take the other seemed to make the human Jesus 
a spectre or fiction. | | 

The church in its Creed of Chalcedon, quietly took both 
positions at once, as though no incongruity existed. It 


declared that in Christ were two natures in one person. — 


LECTURE V. 


FEBRUARY 16, 1874. 


THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 


Tuer nature of Christ and his relation to God were not 


Sat aoe 


the only questions which troubled the early Church. They 


ee 


-aakeTare 


were the first, as was natural; yet long before they were 


finally settled, others were pressing for an answer. Not one 
of the fundamental truths of religion was found to be 
decided for Christendom in advance. If the nature of God 
was left undetermined by the Christian Scriptures, no less 
so, as it proved, was the nature of man. The time came, of 
course, when the Christian mind descended from regions of 
_ abstract speculation, and began to consider the problems of 
actual life. Lite was full of temptation and evil... Human 
nature itself seemed sinful and perverted. How came it 
so? Whence did sin come and how was it to be overcome ¢ 
How far was man himself responsible for it, or capable of 
| resisting it? How did Christianity help him in overcoming 
ie | 

_ So far as the Christian Scriptures were concerned, these 
- questions stood on the same footing with that in regard to 
the nature of Christ. When interrogated, the Scriptures 


eink ae AR 


— 


a =e 


80 


gave an equivocal reply. They presented two distinct 
theories of human nature. 

In the Gospels, as you know, althongh no doctrine is laid 
down on this point more than on others, yet man is repre- 
sented in the simplest and most natural way, as a responsi- 
ble moral being, who is to “do the will of his Father in- 
_ heaven,” to love his neighbor and his enemy alike, to use 
whatever talents, whether five or ten, were given him, and 
to win the kingdom of heaven by righteousness. Had the 
Gospels alone constituted Christianity, this would have been 
the simple code of Christian morals. In the Epistles of — 
Paul, however, another theory appears. Unexpected exi- 
gencies had arisen, as we know, before Paul wrote, and his 
doctrine shaped itself according to the new necessities. If 
the Gentiles were to enter the kingdom of heaven on equal — 
terms with the Jews, and even before them; in other 
words, if Israel had been promised the Kingdom and the 
Messiah, as they certainly had, yet had not received them ; 
why was it? These questions were certainly asked, and 
Paul found no answer ready but that which he gives so 
explicitly in the Epistle to the Romans. “ They are not all 
Israel, which are of Israel.”1 Just as Jehovah, of his own 
arbitrary choice, had selected one rather than another from 
the seed of Abraham, saying: “Jacob have I loved, Esau — 


have I hated,”? so he had again chosen the Gentiles before 


the Jews. But was this not unjust? No! there is no ~ 


injustice with God. His will is his law, which no one must — 
question.” Had he not said to Moses, “TI will have mercy 
on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on 


— 


Rom. rx: 6. 21x: 13; Mal. r: 2.3. 21x90; 


81 


1 Nay, had he not hard- 


whom I will have compassion.” 
ened Pharaoh’s heart, for the very purpose of showing his 
own power and glory’? Not only therefore hath he mercy 
on whom he will, but “whom he will he hardeneth.”® 
Man’s merit does not come into the question. “It is not of 
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that 
showeth mercy.”* The rejection of the Jew and accept- 
ance of the Gentile are part of the eternal plan of God. 
“Bor whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate ; 
whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom 
he called, them he also justified.”® To be sure, there is a 
“yemnant” of the Jews still to be saved; but, even this is 
not through their desert, but only because by God’s grace 
they were elected to be saved. “Even so at the present 
time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 
And if by grace, then is it no more of works.”® It is God’s 
grace alone that saves one and condemns another. And 
God’s grace is won, not by the works of the law, but by 
faith in Christ. Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was 
counted to him for righteousness ;” so we, “ being justified 
by faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ.”’ Indeed, in Christ the curse of sin and death 
which came upon the race in Adam, was finally removed. 
“ As by one ma& sin entered into the world, and death by 
Sin 5 s 3 . - even so by the righteousness 
of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of 
life.’ How far Paul would have modified this rigid theory 


had he undertaken to discuss the general problem of evil, 


1Mal. xx: 15; Ex. xxxm: 19. 21x: 17; Ex. ix: saponin ® tray ts Papen Ba 
Peet: 20,30, 8x1: 5,6. 7 Ch. Iv: v.-1- By: 12, 18. 


82 

instead of simply meeting an immediate perplexity, we can- 
not tell; but snch is his reply to his fellow-countrymen who 
ask him why the teachings of all the prophets have been 
reversed, and the Jew is cut off while the Gentile is saved. 

Such being the two views of human nature presented by 
the Christian Scriptures, we cannot be surprised at finding 
once more a corresponding difference in the teachings of 
the Church Fathers. At first the Gospel view seems to have 
prevailed almost universally; Paul’s doctrines either not 
being familiarly known, or being considered, as they really 
were intended for the first century rather than for the sec- 
ond or third. That man was naturally corrupt, or had lost 
the power to do right, or, however affected by Adam’s fall, 
was in any way involved in Adam’s guilt, are thoughts that 
do not seem to have disturbed the minds of those early 
generations. There is authority for saying that no Greek 
Father, no Alexandrian theologian, not even the great father 
of Orthodoxy, Athanasius himself, admitted any theory of 
Adam’s sin which robbed man of the power to do right, or 
touched his moral freedom. | 

Says Clemens of Alexandria, “Man is the most beautiful 
hymn to the praise of Deity.”? Says Tertullian, who came 
as near ag any of the earlier writers to the later thought of 
Augustine, “ Man, though not naturally good, becomes so 
by free determination. God gave the law that man might 
submit his will to the divine, and so exalt himself to the 
angels.”. “The soul of man springs from the breath of 


God, intelligent in its own nature, free, rational, supreme.” 


1 Comp. Hagenbach’s Hist. of Doctrines, r: 148, 160, &e. 2Coh. p. 78. 
Quoted by Hagenbach. 


83 


Even in its state of corruption, “there is a portion of good 
in the soul of that original, divine and genuine good which 
is its proper nature. For that which is derived from God is 
rather obscured than extinguished.” ‘Some men are very 
good, some very bad; but even in the worst is something 
good, and in the best something bad.” ‘As no soul is 
without sin, so none is without the seeds of good.”? 

The Jewish narrative of the Fall was very differently 
interpreted by different Church teachers; some taking it 
literally, others, and I think the greater number, under- 
standing it as pure allegory. According to Clemens of 
Alexandria, “Moses, describing allegorically divine pru- 
dence, called it the tree of life, and placed it in Paradise.”? 
Origen called the narrative “a type of what takes place in 
free moral agents everywhere and at all times.”* “ Who 
that has undérstanding,” says Origen with characteristic 
frankness, “will suppose that the first, second and third 
day, evening and morning, existed without sun, moon and 
stars, and that the first day was without sky ? And who so 
foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a hus- 
-bandman, planted a paradise and placed in it a tree of life, 
visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by 
bodily teeth, obtained life.”+ “In the Hebrew language, 
Adam means man, and in those parts of the narrative 
which appear to refer to Adam as an individual, Moses is 
 discoursing on the nature of man in general.”? 

But whatever their interpretation of the Scripture Narra- 


tive, these Fathers were quite agreed that man’s freedom of 


1De Anima, xx1I; XLI. ?Strom.v: 11. ?See Hagen. 1: 161. *De 


_ Prin. iv: 16. ®Ag. Celsus, tv: 40. 


84 


will and power of excellence remained unimpaired by 
Adam’s sin. On this point their language was explicit. 
“ Free-will,” says Ireneeus, “is the mark of the ineffaceable 
image of God, and the condition of faith.” “Man being 
endowed with reason, and in this respect like to God, 
having been made free in his will, and with power over him- 
self, is himself the cause to himself that sometimes he 
becomes wheat and sometimes chaff.”? ‘ Punishments and 
good rewards,” says Justin Martyr, “are rendered according 
to the merit of each man’s action. For if it be fated that 
this man be good, and this other evil, neither is the former 
meritorious nor the latter blamed. For neither would a 
man be worthy of reward or praise did he not of himself 
choose good, but were created for this end; nor if he were 
evil, would he be worthy of punishment, not being evil of 
himself, but being able to be nothing but what he was 
made.”* “Entire freedom of will,” says Tertullian, “was 
conferred on man, so that as master of himself he might 
constantly encounter good by spontaneous observance of it, 
and evil by spontaneous avoidance. But reward, neither of 
good nor of evil, could be paid to man who was good or 
evil through necessity and not choice.”* “The nature of 
good,” says Tatian, “is brought to perfection in men 
through their freedom of choice, in order that the bad man 
may be justly punished, having become depraved through 
his own fault, but the just man deservedly praised for virtu- 
ous deeds, since in the exercise of free-choice he refrained 


from transgressing the will of God.”> “The end of 


—___ 


] > ‘ ay’ x . ; 
See Neander’s Dogmas, 1: 183. 2 Ag. Heresies, iv: 4, 3) |? Apola- 
43. *Marcion, 1: 6. ®Tatian, vu. 


philosophy is,” says Clemens, quoting approvingly from the 
Stoics, “to live agreeably to nature.”! “God will have us 
ttain bliss by our own exertions.”? “The Creator,” says 
Origen once more, “gave the power of free and voluntary 
action; but slothfulness, and neglect of better things fur- 
nished the beginning of departure from goodness. But to 
depart from good is nothing else than to be made bad. To 
want goodness is to be wicked.”*® In other words, sin is 
simply the absence of virtue; moral evil is a negative 
quality ; a doctrine in which somewhat later Origen had the 
concurrence of Athanasius. 

It is unnecessary to extend these quotations further, as 
they point for the most part in one direction. Man is free ; 
his nature though deeply stained is by no means corrupt; 
‘the fall of the first man involved’ at worst, but an enfeeble- 
ment of man’s moral power and a proneness to evil; evil 
and goodness are alike possible to him, and wholly depend- 
ent upon his choice; only because they are dependent upon 
his choice, can he be called a’moral agent: this can unhesi- 
tatingly be pronounced the prevailing doctrine of the 
Christian Church at the period when that first serious con- 
troversy upon the question arose, which is now to occupy 
your attention.? 

The controversy took its name from a certain monk, 


elagius, whose personal history, notwithstanding the 


12 


86 


teaching in Rome with his companion and follower, Celes- 
tius, early in the fifth century. From the accounts which 
his opponents give us, we infer that he was a thorough and 
even learned student of ascetic habits, who attacked the sins 
of the day with great moral earnestness, and was especially 
severe against such as were disposed to plead the infirmity 
or corruption of human nature as an excuse for their frail- 
ties... Such being the character of the man, we cannot be 
surprised to find him teaching with great clearness and 
decision the doctrines which so many of the leaders of 
Christian thought had taught before him, and which had 
become more important than ever, in view of a growing ten- 
dency to rely rather upon divine grace than upon human _ 
effort. 

Exactly what Pelagius taught upon these points, we 
learn chiefly from passages of his writings quoted against 
him by his adversaries, and from the acts of condemnation 
passed by the councils. Its main positions seem to have 
been these. While believing implicitly in the Trinity, and 
even in eternal punishment,’ Pelagius held; that man is 
wholly free in action and choice, and able to be pertectly 
good if he will; that Adam’s sin, which differed from 
others only in being the first, affected his posterity only as a 
bad example always incites others to evil, and as evil once 
begun tends always to become in man a second nature, and 
to increase by its own momentum; that divine grace is not — 
an absolute condition of virtue but only a help thereto, and — 
that it strengthens man, not supernaturally by superseding 


his own action, but naturally, by reinforcing his endeavors, 


1Nean. m1: 572-8. 2See Clarke’s Anti-Pelag. Writings; Pref. xz. 
8Nean. 11: 578. 


87 


by enlightening his mind through Gospel truth, and_ by for- 
giveness of sin; that Christ was the highest pattern of 
righteousness, and his function to exalt humanity, not renew 
. it;1 that those who know nothing of Christ and infants born 
where baptism is impossible, may yet be saved ;? and finally, 
that man is good or bad only in so far as his action is 
| wholly his own, and is not determined by influences beyond 
__ his control.’ 

These doctrines, as I have said, differed in no essential 
point from those which had always prevailed, and had been, 
up to that time, silently accepted in the Christian Church ; 


except perhaps, in being more systematically and logically 


_ earnestness, as well as in being followed more persistently 
to their ultimate conclusions. Nor does it appear that when 
_ Pelagius and Celestius first preached those doctrines, they 
aroused any serious hostility. For several years, they 


| 
4 stated than ever before, in being applied with greater moral 
, 
| 
is 
labored in Rome, seeking to elevate the moral tone of the 


Christian community, and openly resisting what they con- 
sidered a disheartening and paralyzing belief in human cor- 
ruption; yet the Roman church was not disturbed by their 
presence, or conscious of their heresy. It was only when in 
410, they changed the field of their labors from Rome to 
| Africa, that they became suspected or that their doctrines 
were challenged. 

In Africa, they found themselves suddenly upon the 
- defensive; yet even here, as is well known, not so much 
because of any hostile sentiment in the African church, as 
because of the man who happened to be at its head, and 


ee 


1Nean. m: 617. ? Anti-Pelag. p. 241. * Baur, mu: 124-135. 


88 


whose presence there seemed to determine, so far as any 
individual influence can ever determine, the religious history 
of the age. Certainly, no one personality has left so visible 
an impress of itself upon the doctrinal faith of Christendom, 
as has that of Saint Augustine. 


Augustine, although not the greatest or most learned of 


the Christian fathers, is probably the most familiarly known_ 


of them all. Almost every one has heard the story of the 
wild and passionate African youth, who, after a lite of exces- 


sive self-indulgence, tempered only by his affection for his 


pious and devoted mother, Manica, suddenly forsook at once _ 


his sensual indulgences and his religious heresies, and gave 
himself to the exclusive service of the Catholic church 
The main facts in his career are these. He was born in 
354, in a lttle town near Carthage, was a college student in 
Carthage, where he distinguished himself alike by his unli- 
censed gaiety, and by his admiration of the Latin classics 


and abomination of the Greek; he was then for many 


years a teacher of rhetoric and oratory in Carthage and — | 


Rome, attached himself to the heretical sect of the Manichee- 
ans, led a life of unscrupulous sensualism, redeemed only 


by certain higher longings stirred in his soul by the teach- 


ings of Cicero, was converted by Ambrose at Milan, was. 


baptized in 387, returned to Carthage, and in 395 was made 


assistant-bishop of Hippo, an important seaport town near z 


Carthage, where he died in 430. When Pelagius came to 


Carthage in 410, to continue there the missionary work in 


which he had been engaged in Rome, Augustine was the 4 | 


virtual head of the African church. 


1 See Putnam’s Monthly for March, 1856. 


eer 


89 


Tf we ask now, after ascribing due influence to the pecu- 
liar personal experiences through which Augustine had 
passed, why he so resolutely opposed doctrines which until 
then had been deemed innocent, there are two facts which 
are worthy our attention, as helping us to our answer. How 
much influence they are likely to have had in moulding 
his theological belief, I leave you to judge. 
The first of these is, that at just about this period the 
Church, as an outward organization with doctrines and ordi- 
nances essential to salvation, was becoming by rapid steps a 
historic reality. Not even yet a complete hierarchy, with a 
single papal head, it had already taken ideal shape however 
in many minds, and Augustine seems to have been one of 
the first to understand all that its name implied. Indeed, 
so far did Augustine go in his estimate of the authority of 
the church, that he declared “he would not believe the Gos- 
pel itself, unless the Church compelled him to do so.” Now 
_ the central idea of the Church as a hierarchy lies in its 
accomplishing for man what he cannot accomplish for him- 
self ; in its possessing the sole means-of salvation. Through 
the administration of its ordinances, especially through the 
rite of baptism, and through this alone, man escapes damna- 
tion and enters the kingdom of God. It is evident at once, 
therefore, how this new necessity of Christian thought must 
modify the old doctrines, especially the doctrine of human 
freedom. The more man can do for himself, the less the 
Church need do for him. If under any circumstances, 
whether by being born in heathen lands, or by dying in 
early infancy, one can enter heaven unbaptized, the neces- 
sity, and therefore the majesty, of the church in so far sut- 


fers. 


90 


Starting from this point, the motive is apparent, and the 
very process of reasoning becomes obvious, by which a 
mind like Augustine’s could be led to his doctrine of total 
depravity. Baptism alone makes one a member of God’s 
Church, and thus secures salvation. Baptism however, 
means the cleansing of the soul from its impurities; in other 
words, the forgiveness of sins. But the new-born child, 
which must be baptized as well as others if it is to be saved, 
has committed no sins; how therefore can baptism have any 
efficacy in its case? Only by supposing it sinful without 
sinning; that is, sinful through the sin of its parents. It 
must have inherited both corruption and guilt. 

This is arguing backward with a witness, and making 
the tree spring from its branches rather than its roots; yet 
it is no unfair statement, so far as we can now judge, of the 
actual logical process by which the dark doctrife of total 
and inherited depravity was first reached. In order to have 
a Church which should be essential to salvation, it was seen 
that baptism into that Church must somehow be made indis- 
pensable for all; but baptism cannot be indispensable to 
the child, unless it is sinful; therefore the child must be 
sinful; therefore we must declare every soul born corrupt. 
One of the explicit charges which Augustine made against 
Pelagius was that he “robbed children of their Savior.” 
In other words, if the soul is born pure, as Pelagius held, 
it does not need to be cleansed, and so needs no Savior to 
cleanse it; if born impure, as Augustine held, then it must 
be cleansed, and so must have a Savior. Once more, the 


argument might strike the secular mind as somewhat twisted, 


1Comp. Baur, m: 148-6, 


a eS ag, aOR i 


ta 


- 


ot 


yet so it stands; not, these little souls are in danger, there- 


fore they must be saved, but, these little souls must be 
saved, therefore they are in danger. The necessity of the 
church must, at all hazards, be vindi ‘ated; and if without 
inherited guilt there can be no Church, then inherited 
guilt we must have. 

The other influence to which I have alluded as possibly 
modifying Augustine’s theology, is to be found in the 
Manicheean faith of which he was an adherent for several 
years before entering the true church. Manicheism is one of 
those mysterious religious systems, born evidently in foreign 
soil, which in those early years connected themselves so inti- 
mately with Christianity that it is almost impossible, at this 
distance, to determine whether they were Pagan religions or 
Christian heresies. Originating in Persia in the third cen- 
tury through the agency of a Persian philosopher, Manes, and 
offering itself at first apparently as a reformed Zoroastrian 
movement, Manicheism soon connected itself with Chris- 
tianity, discovered in Christian doctrines its own fundamental 
principles, and became, through the superior purity and 
beauty of its moral code, so fascinating to the Christian mind, 
that it continued a “thorn in the flesh of the Roman church” 
from the third century through the Middle Ages. Among 
its converts was Augustine, who for nearly ten years studied 
its deep philosophy, and received from it certain intellectual 
influences from which there is abundant reason to believe 
that he never wholly freed himself} 

Manicheism solved the problem of evil in the most direct 


and simple style, by supposing two primitive powers in the 


1 Baur, mw: 157; Putnam, March, 1856, p. 230. 


v2 


universe, an eternal good and an eternal evil; a Prince of 
Light and a Prince of Darkness; Spirit and Matter ; Soul 
and Body. In Christ, it saw the Spirit of Light coming 
down to tree other enchained souls of light. In the Christ- 
ian process of redemption, it saw the longing and striving 
of nature to purify itself, and rise out of darkness into 
light These ideas, notwithstanding the eager disavowals 
of both Augustine himself and his followers, it is impossible 
not to trace in those theories of human nature with which, 
since Augustine forsook Manicheeism and entered the Chris- 
tian Church, Christendom has grown so familiar. According 
to Manicheean doctrine, good and evil are eternal; there are 
two souls in man, a good soul and an evil soul. According 
to Augustine, good and evil contend in man on equal terms ; 
sin is a positive and independent power in the universe, 
divine grace is absolutely good, human nature is absolutely 
evil. Indeed, Augustine’s ablest opponent, Julian, point- 
edly declared that Augustine’s master, Manes, differed from 
his follower only in being more consistent. If man is 
created evil, his Creator must be the Prince of Evil, or else 
God must himself be evil; a logical conclusion which 
Manes would accept, but which Augustine arbitrarily 
denied? ; 

Such being the circumstances of Augustine’s life, as well 
as the character of his mind, we can no longer be surprised 
to find him drawing his theories of human nature rather 
from Paul’s Epistles than from the Gospels; or to find him 
offering stern resistance to. the teachings of Pelagius and 


Celestus, and throwing his official influence against both 


. 


1 Baur, 11: 66-78. 2 Baur, 1: 158. 


93 


the men and their doctrines. Pelagius soon left Africa for 
Jerusalem; but Celestus, who remained in Carthage, was 
allowed no rest until he was finally summoned before a 
synod to answer for his errors. The first formal step in 
this controversy was the action of this synod in 412, by 
which Celestius was excommunicated for holding these six 
heresies: 1. Adam would have died even if he had not 
sinned. 2. Adam’s sin injured himself alone. 3. Infants 
are born in the state of Adam before he fell. 4. Mankind 
neither died in Adam nor rose again in Christ. 5. The 
Law no less than the Gospel brings men to Christ. 6. 
There were sinless men before Christ.! 

While these severe measures were taken in Africa, the 
matter seems to have been viewed in Palestine, whither 
Pelagius had next gone, in a very different light, and no 
more alarm to have been felt at his doctrines, than had been 


felt before in Rome. In 415, at Augustine’s solicitation, a 


synod was called, which was soon followed by another ; 
yet so little interest was shown, and so little hostility to 
Pelagius could be aroused, that no condemnation was 
secured.” Worse still, Zosimus, Bishop of Rome, whose 
decision in doctrinal matters, owing to the prominence 
which the Roman church was fast assuming, was of the 
utmost importance, could not be induced to discover heresy 
in either Pelagius or Celestus; but on the contrary in a 
letter to the bishops of North Africa, took occasion to say 
“Would that some of you had been present when Pelagius’s 
letter was read. Scarcely could some refrain from tears to 
find that a man so thoroughly Orthodox could yet be made 


the object of suspicion.”® 


1 Anti-Pelag. x1. 2Nean. m: 585. ® 1: 589. 
13 


94 


This rendered necessary those decisive measures which 
the ecclesiastics of earlier days knew so well how to employ 
when objectionable doctrines were to be condemned. A 
council was called in North Africa, in 418, at which nine 
canons were adopted, embodying the Augustinian ideas of 
free-will and grace, influences were successfully used in 
Rome to win over the Emperor to the North African side, 
imperial edicts began to appear against Pelagius and his 
followers, until finally the Roman bishop, Zosimus, was 
fairly frightened into withdrawing his former edict, and in 
418, accepted the decrees of the North African Council. 
By these methods of theological debate, somewhat less 
startling, yet no less conclusive, than those employed at Nice 
and Ephesus, the final condemnation of Pelagius was 
secured ; and the Christian Church accepted, at the hands of 
Augustine, a theory of sin, grace, election, and predestina- 
tion, at which Origen, Irenzeus, or Tertullian would have - 
turned pale with dismay. 

It is mortifying to add, that the disgraceful rule which — ; 
we have found hitherto to hold wherever refusal to sub- 
scribe to a new doctrine involved the loss of a bishopric, 
met with no exception here. The eighteen Italian bishops, 
who at first stood out on the side of Pelagius, nearly all 
repented in the end, and saved their sees. The only con- 
spicuous instance to the contrary was Julian, Bishop of 
Apulia, whose bold denunciation of his cowardly assgciates, 
and superb vindication of the condemned heresy, constitute 
the single element of nobleness in this most ignoble contro- 3 | 
versy. 3 

The theory of human nature which thus became the doc- 


trine and belief of the Christian Church, has at least the — | 


95 


merit of great simplicity and consistency. It has in fact, 
precisely the unity to be expected in the product of a single 
mind following a single definite purpose, and willing to 
earry its thoughts to their ultimate consequences ; a mind 
which was too unfamiliar with Greek, apparently, to know 
what the previous doctrines of the church on these great 
themes had been, and certainly too ignorant of both the 
original tongues in which the Scriptures were written to be 
deterred from placing upon any passage whatever interpre- 
tation the argument might need. The main points of the 
theory are too familiar to need here, even if there were 
space, any but the briefest statement. Augustine simply 
took Paul’s explanation of the rejection of the Jews, and 
- made it, with some enlargements, a universal theory of 
human nature. 

Adam, according to Augustine, if he had not sinned, 
_ “would not have been divested of his body, but would have 
been clothed’ upon with immortality and incorruption.”* 
Through his sin, death became the lot of man. Through 
his sin also, human nature became burdened with infinite 
guilt; his guilt being imputed to the whole race. The race 
is wholly corrupt therefore, and incapable of itself of any 
_ knowledge or any virtue. No effort of its own can help it, 
for every effort springs from its corrupt nature ; it can only 
be helped by the free grace of God, offered through Christ. 
_ This grace is received by baptism, which cleanses the soul of 
its guilt. Without baptism, no soul can be saved ; and bap- 
-tism ean be administered only by the Church. The good 


which man accomplishes, and the salvation he secures, are 


' Anti-Pel. p. D: 


96 


through no merit of his own, but only through the grace of 
God. Not even all the baptized are saved; but only those 
who are elected to be saved, while all others, by God’s 
absolute and arbitrary will, are pre-ordained to condem- 
nation. 

No system more complete, or pursuing its consequences 
with more relentless consistency, was ever devised. But 
when this is said all is said. ‘To find any basis for the sys- 
tym either in reason, or in Scripture, outside of Paul’s 
Epistles, has always proved beyond the power of its most 
skilful advocates. Indeed, before the death of its author, it 
had already been riddled through and through by Julian 
and others, and arguments brought against it which remain 
to this day unanswered." From its first proposition, which 
involves the palpable paradox that a finite being committed 
an infinite sin with infinite consequences, or its second 
proposition relating to the imputation of Adam’s guilt, 
which rests upon a false interpretation of Rom. vy: 12,2 to its 
last assertion, each statement rests for its support solely upon 
the ingenuity of the mind that devised it. Nevertheless, 
Augustine’s point was gained. Ecclesiastical doctrines are 
determined, as it seems, not by the truth or piety that is in 
them, but simply by the votes that can be counted for them; 
and the votes of the North African church accepted Augus- 
tine and rejected Pelagius. 

At the same time, although my present object is to state 
doctrines, not to discuss them, it is impossible to turn from 


this subject without some slight recognition of the deep 


injury done to the Christian Church by laying upon it the 


‘Baur, mw: 147, 148. 2Nean. nm: 609; Anti-Pel. p. 12. 


97 


needless burden of this most repulsive and demoralizing 
dogma. No single doctrine of the Orthodox creed has 
elicited more frequent or emphatic protests from the purer 
minds of Orthodoxy itself than this; if indeed, the doctrine 
in its completeness can be said to have ever gained the 
acceptance of Catholic Christendom. Protestantism has 
shown itself, on the whole, more hospitable to Augustine 
than Romanism. 

Even before Augustine’s death, the natural moral conse- 
quences of the system began to appear. In 426, Augustine 
was urged to remonstrate with certain monks of Adrume- 
tum, who were applying his theories in the following highly 
objectionable way. “Of what use,” said the artless monks, 
“are all doctrines or precepts? Human efforts can avail 
nothing; it is God that worketh in us to will and to do. 
Nor is it right to reproach or to punish those who are in 
error or who commit sin; for it is none of their fault that 
they act thus. Without grace they cannot do otherwise ; 
nor can they do anything to merit grace.”* 

The perplexity of the monks of Adrumetum remains a 
perplexity to the present day. Alas for the church that 
must live in this constant moral bewilderment! Alas for 
the church which must teach itself to believe at one and the 
‘same moment that good or eyil conduct does not depend on 
man’s effort, and that man is responsible for his good or evil 
conduct! Alas for the community that must reconcile with 
its conscience a dogma which sets conscience at defiance, 
‘and must reconcile with reason a system by which all reason 
is abjured ! 


1Nean. 11: 625. 


98 


den laid “upon it so heavy to be borne, no belief attached 
to it which so stirs the sorrow of its friends and the con- 
tempt of its foes, as the Augustinian doctrine of Original 


Sin and Predestination. 


mmCruRe VI. 


THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 


Tux preceding lectures have traced the formation, during 
the first four centuries, of the principal Christian doctrines 
relating to the nature of Christ and the nature of man. I 
recur to the point now, to call your attention to the process 
by which these doctrines have been formed. That process, 
as you have perbaps noticed, has been in all cases the same ; 
and would have been found the same had we examined the 
many other subordinate beliefs which were adopted by 
Christendom during the same period. Not one, as we 
have seen, was drawn directly from the Christian Scrip- 
tures; but each was fixed, in turn, by one or more councils, 
whose duty it was, in each case, to determine among several 


existing doctrines which should be accepted as the true 


belief of Christendom. Had these councils, or something 


corresponding with them, never been held, we should have 
to-day no definite or uniform articles of Christian faith. In 
other words, the belief of Christendom has been created, or 
determined, by its councils. 

The question arises at this point, therefore, what were 


those councils, and where did they find the authority which 


i they assumed to fix the faith of Christendom? We find 


100 


them speaking in the name of the Catholic or Universal 
Church, and purporting to be the mouthpiece of such a 
Church. What do they mean by this? What is this 
Catholic Church? When and how did it come into exist- 
ence, end whence did it receive its authority? It was the 
final appeal of all those who had the ereation of doctrines 
in charge; upon its authority, therefore, rests the title of 
each and every Christian dogma. It becomes of the utmost 
importance then, to know what and whence this so-called 
Catholic Church is. 

As usual, the Scriptures do not help us in this enquiry. 
The name Catholic Church is not to be found in the Serip- 
tures; neither is the thing. The word “church” is found 
twice, it is true, in our translation of the Gospels ;' but even 
in those cases it might and probably should be otherwise 
translated. The original term “ecclesia” had at that time 
no ecclesiastical signification whatever, but was the word 
commonly employed by the Greeks to denote any general 
gathering of the people. It meant “assembly ;” and is the 
same word which in another place? is correctly translated 
“assembly.” When Jesus used it or its equivalent, therefore, 
on the occasions mentioned above, the disciples would natu- 
rally understand him as alluding to the body of his followers 
in general, whether united in an ecclesiastical organization or 
not. That Jesus himself created no such organization, does 
not need to be proved to those who read in Scripture lan- 
guage only what is there. Not only do the Gospels give no 
hint of such an act, but they show no such desire on the 


part of Jesus himself. He seems to have no purpose or 


1Matt. xvi: 18; xvur: 17. 2 Acts x1x: 39. 


101 


anxiety beyond the simple utterance of his lofty thought, 
and its practical exemplification in a holy life. It is an 
indisputable fact that no evidence exists of any steps on his 
part towards separating his followers from the synagogues, 
or uniting them in a distinct body by themselves. Jesus left 
his followers, so far as ecclesiastical organization is con- 
cerned, just as he found them. 

The testimony of the Gospels on this point is repeated by 
the Book of Acts. If Jesus founded no church, no more 
-do his immediate disciples seem to have done so. I have 
already pointed out the fact that in the only accounts which 
we have of the disciples who gathered in Jerusalem after 
Jesus’ death, there is nothing in their outward observances 
to distinguish them from their fellow Jews. They seem to 


have continued for some time, not only to read and honor 


the Jewish Scriptures, but also to frequent, as before, the 
Jewish Temple and synagogues, to observe the Jewish fasts 
and feasts, to take upon themselves Jewish vows, and to 
practice the most distinctive Jewish rites.1 They did not 
even call themselves by any peculiar: name. They “ were 
called Christians first in Antioch;”’? and even then did 
not give themselves the name, but apparently received it 
from others. Had any visitors in Jerusalem, during the first 
ten or twenty years after Jesus’ death inquired after his dis- 
ciples, they would probably have been referred to a group of 
Jews living together as one large family, and distinguished 
from other Jews almost exclusively by their firm hope of 
seeing Jesus return among them as the promised Messiah. 


While they waited for his coming, and with that coming for 


s 


PLecture 1: p. 7. *Acts xi: 26. 
14 


102 


the overthrow of all existing kingdoms and churches, there 
was slight motive, certainly, for organizing themselves into a 
permanent religious body. 

The first approach to separate organization was apparently 
in the case of the bodies called together in different regions 
by the preaching of Paul, Barnabas and their companions. 
Over these, teachers and elders (presbyters) seem to have pre- 
sided, as over Jewish synagogues; and the relation between 
apostle and disciple was such that Paul could address his 
followers as members together with himself, in equal honor, 
of the one body of Christ.1 The tone in which both Paul 
and Peter always address their readers, as well as the few 
facts which appear from the narratives, shows plainly that 
even they claim no authority over their congregations, but 
are simply their freely appointed leaders. “Not that we 
have dominion over your faith,” said Paul to the Corinthi- 


»2 Such continued to be 


ans, “but are helpers in your joy. 
the condition of Christendom down to the close of the Apos- 
tolic age. Churches there already were at Antioch, Corinth, 
Ephesus, Thessalonica and other spots, but under no single 
head, and with no further organization evidently than was 
needed for the simplest church life. Their only officers 
seem to have been the little band called sometimes “elders” 
(presbyteroi), sometimes ‘ overseers” (episcopoi),? whose 
functions corresponded probably with those of the elders of 
the synagogues. In later days the “overseers” became a dis- 


tinct body from the “elders” 


and in course of time became 


bishops. 


——EE 


1] Cor. xm. 22 Cor. 1: 24; Comp. Baur’s Christenthum, 4; 242. 
SAC Ma 17, 20 ell, 3, AGE De 


EE 


Pe 


103 


Of the ecclesiastical condition of Christendom in the age 
immediately following that of the Apostles, we know of 
course but little. We can form some idea of it, however, 
from this passage, found in the First Epistle of Clemens 
of Rome to the Corinthians, written about the end of the 
first century, at a time evidently when the Corinthians had 
been setting aside some church officers who were distasteful 
to them: “We see how you have put out some who lived 
respectably among you, from the ministry, which by their 
innocence they had adorned.” ‘Now we cannot think that 
these may be justly thrown out of their ministry, who were 
either appointed by the Apostles or afterwards chosen by 
other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church.”? 
“Do ye, therefore, submit yourselves unto your elders.”? 
From this passage it would appear that at the close of the 
first century there were no bishops as distinct ‘from elders, 
and that the separate churches still assumed the privilege of 
ridding themselves of obnoxious leaders, while at the same 
time the need of a stricter organization and of a central 
authority was beginning to be felt. 

During the second century, as we are not surprised to 
learn, this simple primitive conception of the Christian 
Church underwent serious modifications. The perfect 
equality of elder with elder and people with clergy, the 
simple recognition of each other as “members together” of 
Christ’s body, which had been sufticient apparently for 
earlier times,? could not bear the strain of conflicting doc- 


trines within and threatening philosophies without. The 


1] Cor. xrx: 18, 21. 2Clemens, 1 Cor. xxtv: 15. ®Neander’s Dogmas, 
rr 219. 


104 


leaders of the church began to assume higher authority, 
and the church itself to be viewed with greater reverence. 
‘Where the Church is,” said Irenzeus, before the close of the 
second century, “there is the Spirit of God.” “It is only 
ut the breast of the Church that one can be nursed to life.” 
‘““He who separates himself from this Church, renounces 
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.”! A. still more signifi- 
cant word did Ireneeus and his contemporaries use, when 
they borrowed from Greek philosophy the term applied to 
its schools or sects, and called the doctrines of their oppo- 
nents “heresies.”? An established Christian truth there was 
by this time then, any departure from which could be treated 
as error. Where did they find this truth? In the Chris- 
tian Scriptures? Not at all. No one seems to have sought 
it there. ‘*When heretics are refuted from Scriptures, they 
accuse these same Scriptures and say they are ambiguous.” 
Ireneus found it in the spoken traditions of the Apostles, 
handed down to their successors. ‘Suppose there arise a 
dispute,” he says, “relative to important questions among 
us, Should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches, 
with which the Apostles had intercourse, and learn from 
them what is certain and clear?” “It is within the power 
of all to contemplate clearly the ¢radition of the Apostles ; 
and we are in position to reckon up those who were by — 
- Apostles instituted bishops in our churches, and the succes- 
sion of these to our times.” “Since it would be tedious to 
reckon up the succession of all churches, we indicate the 
tradition of our great, very ancient, universally known 


church, founded and organized at Rome by those two most 


1Nean. 1: 209. ? Baur, 1: 233. *®Iren. Ag. Her. . 


105 


_ glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, as also the faith preached 
to men which comes down to us by means of the succession 
of bishops Linus, Anacletus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, 
Sixtus, Teleophorus, Hyginus, Pius, Arnictus, Soter, Eleu- 
therius. There is much abundant proof that one and the 
same faith has been preserved in the Church from the Apos- 
tles till now and handed down in truth.”? “The Apostles, 
like rich men in a bank, lodged in the hands of the Church 
all things pertaining to truth. She is the entrance to life.”” 
The church then was taking form. It was the depository of 
truth ; it had a divine succession of bishops; it had a 
divine tradition ; it could speak of heresies. 

Let it not be supposed, however, that this view was 
already universally accepted. ‘Why find fault with Chris- 
tian heresies ?” said Origen, nearly fitty years later. “ Here- 
sies are found also in medicine and philosophy. ‘They arise 
through the earnest desire of many literary men to become 
acquainted with the doctrines of Christianity.”* Says Ter- 
—tulion, with delightful freedom: “You say the Church has 
power of forgiving sins? But whence this right? From 
the passage,’ ‘I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom 
of Heaven’? &c.?2 But what sort of a man art thou, sub- 
verting the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring the 
gift personally on Peter. ‘ On thee, I will build my church. 
‘J will give to thee’ the keys, not ‘to the Church.’ Whatso- 
ever ‘thou, Peter,’ shalt bind, not ‘they.’ What has this to 
do with the Church! The Church, it is true, will forgive 
sins, but it will be the Church of the Spirit, by means of a 


1Ag. Heresies, ur. ?Do.1v. *®Celsus xu. 4Matt. xvi: 19. 


106 


spiritual man, not the Church which is made of a number 
of bishops.” ! f 

The claims of the Episcopate found fullest assertion, at 
this period, in the writings of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage 
from 248 to 258. “There is one God,” he says, “and Christ ; 
is one and there is one Church, and one chair founded upon 
arock. Another altar, or new priesthood cannot be made. 
If any shall join a heretical faction, let him know that he — 
cannot afterwards return to the Church and communicate 
with the bishops and people of Christ.2” “Lest they cut 
and tear the one body of the Catholic Church * * * let 
them acknowledge and understand that when a bishop is 
once made another can by no means be appointed.” 
“Whoever he may be, and whatever he may be, he who is not 
in the Church of Christ is not a Christian.4’ “We cannot _ 
be saved but by the one only baptism of the one church.”5 
Cyprian seems to have used these words in the most literal 
sense, and without any thought of the “invisible church,” — 
which in later times became a favorite conception. “In his — 
view,” says Neander, “the Church was an outward organ- 
ism, founded by Christ, of which the bishops were the | 
pillars.” Outside the Church was no truth whatever. Tt 
is of no avail what any man teaches; it is enough that he 
teaches out of the Church.’ | 

By the middle of the third century then the idea of the 
Universal Church began to be familiar. But who are the’ 
members of that church was a question still to be settled. 4 i 


Does the outward rite of baptism alone constitute one a — 


1 Modesty, xxi. *Epis. xxxrx. ®xx. ‘z7; 24, °~xxxi: 11. ®Nean Jay 
Dogmas, 1: 222. : 


107 


member of the body of Christ, or must there be some in- 
ard purity or personal worth as well? This was the ques- 
tion which arose in the Donatist controversy in the fourth 
century. On the occasion of the election of a bishop in 
Carthage, in 311, the party of Donatus refused to recognize 
‘the new bishop, on the ground that he had been ordained by 
one who was morally unworthy to perform the functions of 
the Church. In other words, they claimed that the Church 
of Christ demanded purity in its members and worthiness in 
its officers; that the Church consisted, “not of a certain 
number of baptized people, but of such as possessed inward 
holiness.1” ‘ Whoever is shown to be a Christian in a right 
and lawful manner is to me a Catholic,” said the Donatist. 

This is high ground certainly, and would seem eminently 
in keeping with the spiritual temper of Christianity. But to 
‘the idea of an outward church, involving of course some in- 
dubitable badge of membership, it was found to be fatal, and 
the contest could only result, as it did, in fixing more firmly 
than before the conception of an organized and divinely insti- 
tuted hierarchy, the sanctity of whose rites was independent 
of the character of those who administered them. Donatism 
was suppressed; and one earnest effort to spiritualize the 
conception of a Christian Church wholly failed.? “No one 
attains to salvation and eternal life,’ said Augustine in 
opposing this schismatic party a century later, “who has not 
Christ for his head. But no one can have Christ for a head 
who does not belong to’ his body, which is the Church.”® 
The true body of Christ, according to Augustine, was the 


great Catholic Church “spread throughout the world.” No 


1Nean. 1: 182-217. 2 Baur, 1: 220-226. *Nean. m: 204. 


108 


matter what the character of the officiating priests might be, 
his official act, be it baptism or other sacramental rite, lost 
none of its innate sanctity. The Church, in all its parts, 
was divine. Its authority was final, even in questions of 
revealed truth. The Scriptures themselves, as we have seen, 
Augustine accepted only because the church sanctioned. 
them. ? | 

To close this part of the subject, let me quote once more 
the edict of Theodosius, issued in 380, to which I have 
before alluded in another connection: ‘‘ According to 
the discipline of the Apostles and the doctrine of the Gos- 
pel, let us believe the sole Deity of the Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost, under an equal majesty and a pious Trinity. 
We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the — 
title of Catholic Christians ; and as we judge that all others 


are extravagant mad-men, we brand them with the impious ~~ 


name of heretics; and declare that their conventicles shall 
no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches.”? 

Even at the end of the fourth century, however, the 
Church was far from complete. One serious difficulty still 
remained. So long as there were many heads over the 
Church, whether bishops, archbishops or patriarchs, there 
was danger, of course, of divided councils. The perfect 
unity of the Church plainly demanded that one should be 
exalted above the rest. The logical necessity which out of 
the primitive idea of an outward authority for Christian 
faith had already evolved an outward hierarchy, receiving 
inspiration from the Apostles and so from Christ himself, 
could not be satisfied until that hierarchy had a single 


1Lecture y. .2Gibbon,. ut: 3958. - 


109 


supreme head. The voice of the Apostolic Church must be 
distinct and certain. The next historical step, therefore, 
was clear. Long before the days of the popes it was a fore- 
gone conclusion that one bishop should rise above his fellows. 
As early as the third century, each province had its patri- 
arch. Among the patriarchs one must in time become 
supreme. 

Not quite so clear was it, however, to whom this leader- 
ship should fall. For the first two or three centuries the 
East seemed the natural home and centre of Christendom. 
If neither Jerusalem nor Antioch could claim to be the 
leading see, it might perhaps be Alexandria or Constanti- 
nople. It was only by degrees that the Roman Church 
came into prominence, and its claim to an unbroken lineage 
* from the Apostles themselves was accepted as a sufficient 
title to eminence. In the second century, it is true, Irenzeus 
spoke of “our great, very ancient, and universal Roman 
Church, founded and organized at Rome, by the two most 
glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul.”? 

Cyprian, too, in the next century, spoke of “The Chair 
of Peter, the principal Church whence sprang the unity of 
the priesthood.”? But this was very far from conceding the 
absolute supremacy of the Roman Church, or indeed grant- 
ing it any peculiar authority. It was higher than the rest, 
but not over them. Cyprian himself, in a dispute with the 
bishop of Rome, wholly refused to be governed by his 
decision, and insisted that “each bishop must act independ- 
ently, according to his own conscience.”? The Chair of 


Peter, although “principal,” was by no means supreme. 


> 


1Ag. Heresies, mt. ?Nean.1: 214. %Nean. Dogmas, [: 293. 


15 


110 


Indeed in the time of Irenzeus, as we have seen, it was not 
considered the “Chair of Peter,” but of “Peter and Paul.” 
The Church of Rome had two founders. Origen was far 
from Orthodox on the point of Peter’s connection with the 
Church. When Jesus said “Upon this Rock I will build 
my Church,”! he meant that the Church was founded on all 
who acknowledged Christ as the Son of God. All true fol- 
lowers of Christ, according to Origen, are “ Peters” (Petroi) 
i. e., Rock-men. The Kingdom of God consists of such 
true disciples; this is the Church against which the Gates of 
Hell shall not prevail.’ | 

At the Council of Nice, in 325, among 318 bishops, arch- 
bishops and patriarchs, no one was considered supreme, nor 
did any receive other honor than was due to their personal 
dignity, their years, or the political importance of their sees. 
The Church of Rome was represented only by deputies. 
Foremost among those present was the aged Alexander, 
bishop of Alexandria, the only one in the assembly who bore 
the office title of Pope; the term pope (papa, or father) 
being a title of Eastern derivation applied at first to all 
priests indiscriminately, but afterwards reserved for the chief 
of the Egyptian church.”® In 325 it seems there was no 
Pope of Rome, but there was a Pope of Alexandria. 

The growing influence of the Church of Rome, owing 
especially to political causes, was very evident at the two 
councils of Ephesus and Chaleedon,* at which time the sup- 
port of Leo, the bishop of Rome, was eagerly sought by 


both parties to the Eutychian controversy. In the Council : 


‘Matt. xvi: 18. *Nean. Dogmas, 1: 224. ®Stanley’s Kast. Church, — 
p. 188 and note. 4449; 451. 


Dhl 


of Ephesus the main charge against Dioscurus, its leader, 
was that he had suppressed a letter of Leo denouncing Euty- 
ches. In the Council of Chalcedon a letter from Leo was 
made the basis of the creed which was finally adopted; and 
the reading of the creed was. interrupted by such shouts as 
these from the assembled bishops: “ This is the faith of the 
Orthodox; thus do we all believe; thus does Pope Leo 
believe; thus did Christ believe; thus has the Pope ex- 
pounded.”? It is not to be necessarily inferred from these 
shouts, however, that the bishop of Rome was already 
recognized as pope of the Christian Church. The title 
seems to have been given to Leo only by his followers; as 
it was not until at least a century later that it is known 
to have become finally attached to the See of Rome.’ In 
the Greek Church it was retained in its primitive use, 
as belonging to all members of the priesthood alike. At 
the same time the entrance of Leo the Great into the 
bishopric, marks more definitely than any other single 
event the beginning of the supremacy of the Roman 
Church! The claim to the successorship of Peter, made by 
~ Roman bishops as early as the close of the second century,* 
and favored more and more by the growing political power 
of the Roman see, found for the first time in Leo a worthy 
representative, who not only understood the idea of the 
Catholic Church, but was determined to win for it practical 
recognition. The influence of his mere name at the Council 
of Chalcedon, we have already seen. The importance which 
later tradition assigned to his career can be best understood 


_ from Raphael’s well-known fresco of “ Attila,” in the “Stanza 


1Evag. p. 328. ?Hase, p. 145. ®Do. 143. 4Nean, Dogmas, I: 223. 


112 


of the Helidorus” in the Vatican. The picture is based on 
the following myth: When Attila crossed the Alps, in 452, 
and held Rome at his mercy, he was turned aside by the 
appearance of Leo, in his pontifical robes, who came forth 
to meet him, and over whose head appeared St. Peter and 
St. Paul, protecting their successor with a brandished 
sword.! . 

Leo, as I have said, was not proclaimed pope. Nor is it 
possible to say which of his successors first assumed that 
title and became historically the first head of the Catholic 
Church. Probably there was no such first pope. The 
claim to primacy which developed itself gradually in the 
minds of the Roman bishops, developed itself gradually 
also in outward realization. We can note only a few of its 
successive stages. 

When, about the year 476, the German barbarians had 
finally established themselves in Italy, and destroyed the 
last vestige of the Western Empire, the metropolitan bish- 
ops of Rome came to be regarded by the people as their 
native lords, and gained power enough to free themselves 
for a time from all lay interference with the affairs of the 
Church. A century later (590-604), while the Longobards 
were establishing themselves in Italy, Gregory the Great 
secured for the Church still greater political independence, 
and gave the final blow to the allegiance of the popes to 
the Emperor. Gregory was the first moreover to give to 
the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the essential character 
of a sacrifice of the mass, and also to give popular currency 


to the idea of Purgatory.” 


1Hase, 144. # Hase, 145, 6. 


ee ee ee 


113 


In 1054 came the excommunication by the Pope of the 

Patriarch of Constantinople ;* from which time the Eastern 

Church, once identical with* Christendom, became, as the 

Greek Church, a schismatic body, while its Western rival, 

_ having numbers and political power on its side, remained the 
sole head of Catholic Christianity. 

The pontificate of Hildebrand (1073-85), was marked by 
the dramatic and significant spectacle of an emperor appear- 
ing as a suppliant at the gates of the Pope, and waiting 
three winter days barefoot, before the haughty ecclesiastic 
would even receive his submission. From the time of Hilde- 

brand the emancipation of the papacy from its vassalage to 
the empire was complete. 

It would be useless in a discourse like this to attempt to 
trace in further detail the several steps by which the Catho- 
_ lie Church advanced towards its present perfect development. 
Its doctrinal completion is wont to be found in the decrees 
of the Council of Trent, which was called in 1545-6, in 
response to the great Protestant movement of the 16th 
century, and which enunciated formally and finally the 
dogmas of Catholicism. If any single moment is to be 
d pointed out, however, when the Catholic Church reached 
the fulness of its growth, and realized its perfect ideal, it 
would certainly be that moment in the year 1870, when 
the General Council of the Vatican pronounced the Pope of 
Rome the infallible head of the Church. In this act the 
structure became complete; without it, it would have re- 
mained forever unfinished. However inconsistent with pre- 


vious declarations of the Church, or repugnant to many of 


1Nean. mr: 585. 


114 


its present members the doctrine itself may be, it is yet the 
logical conclusion and the inevitable result of the first 
assumption on which the Catholic Church rests. When the 
infallible word, intrusted to the hands of a divine hier- 
archy, is finally interpreted by one infallible mind, then and 
only then, perfect security against divided councils is gained, 
and the last step is taken in the progress of ecclesiastical 
Christianity. 

And now, with this account of the Catholic Church before 
us, the place which the subject takes in our present en- 
quiries becomes sufliciently plain. The Church came into 
being, as we have seen, in answer to the demand for a fixed 
and authoritative standard of doctrinal faith. If such a 
standard is essential to religious faith, such an institution 
as this must certainly exist to supply it. If we once grant 
this necessity, then, we must acknowledge that the succes- 
sive steps which the Church took in its gradual development 
were natural and inevitable, and that the ideal of doctrinal 
unity and ecclesiastical authority could hardly be more 
legitimately or perfectly realized than in the Roman Catho- 
lic Church of to-day. Every claim it has made, however 
arrogant, and each position it has taken, however unscrupu- 
lous, from the hour when each community made and 
unmade its bishops at will, to the moment when Pius IX. 
became the infallible head of an omnipotent hierarchy, has | | 
been simply an onward step toward the perfect vindication 
of its title to spiritual authority. However hostile to 
abstract justice or right many of these proceedings may 


have been, it would be difficult to show that the Church 


could have remained a church on any other terms. To ~— 


accept the vote of a noisy council of angry bishops, acting | 


115 


under imperial dictation, as deciding the most solemn doc- 
trines of Christian faith, to declare the administration of 
religious rites as holy if the priest be wicked as if he be 
virtuous, to bestow upon a human being the divine attribute 
of spiritual infallibility, although in the simple light of 
reason preposterous, yet one and all, as steps towards en- 
suring uniformity of faith, have the argument wholly on 
their side. They are the very means whereby the Catholic 
Church has so brilliantly redeemed its promises, and so 
triumphantly achieved for Christendom a perfect Orthodoxy. 
If the Christian world asks for outward authority, it is difh- 
cult to see what better it can demand than is here offered it. 
Tracing back its descent to apostolic times, pointing to an 
unbroken career of eighteen centuries, and to a unity 
disturbed only by a slight departure from the faith in the 
fifth century, the schism of the Greek Church in the 
eleventh century, and the Protestant schism in the sixteenth, 
the Catholic Church as an ecclesiastical institution, has 
claims upon the recognition of Christendom which could 
not well be surpassed. | , 

And of such churches there can be but one. If two are 
possible, if Christendom can have two ecclesiastical systems, 
then neither is supreme. Then doctrinal authority ceases. 
- Two sourees of authority areas impossible as twenty. If 
_ there is to be any outward authority in Christianity, it must 
be single. Christendom cannot have two churches; it can 
have but one, and that the one which can claim years and 
numbers on its side. If a Church is necessary to Chris- 
tianity, then the Roman Church holds that place unchal- 


Still another point is equally clear. If there is no room 


116 


in Christendom for two churches, no more is there room for 
two authorized faiths. Doctrine is simply, as we have seen, 
the utterance of the Church in matters of religious belief. 
Doctrines are Church decisions. If there can be but one 
Christian Church, so there can be but one Christian Ortho- 
doxy. To suppose two, is to suppose none. The creed of 
the Roman Church must remain the Orthodoxy of Christen- 
dom until there is another Church to contest the place of 
the Church of the Papacy. , 

I trust that you understand my exact position here. I do 
not say that the Church of Rome is the legitimate outcome 
of Christianity; I say it is the legitimate outcome of 
doctrinal Christianity. Ido not say it holds the only true 
faith; I say it holds the only faith for those who ask for a 
verbal creed. I do not say it has rightful authority over the 
soul; I say that over those who seek outward authority, the 
Catholic Church should be supreme. I do not say its logical 
position is invulnerable ; I say its position is invulnerable if 
its premises are granted. 

For one, I do not accept its premises. Im my view, a 
religion is possible without outward authority, and without 
uniformity of faith. In my view, no true religion is possi- 
ble with outward authority, or the acceptance of dogmas. 
As I view Christianity, Christianity was possible without 
ecclesiasticism, without a hierarchy, without a creed. As I 
view Christianity, the divine life to which it summoned the 
soul was not subscription to a verbal belief, but the pur- 
suit of a truth which is infinite; not the solution of meta- 
physical subtleties, but the unfolding of spiritual aspirations. 
As I view Christian truth, the church which lay ideally in 


the great Founder’s heart, was not a realm of authority 


117 


where dominion is to be exercised over faith; it was 
the fellowship of souls in the pursuit of holiness and_ excel- 
lence, and the leadership of every pure and noble spirit 
which, with priestly robes or without, can help others to a 
nearer approach to heaven. As I view our religion, the 
moment the first priest was invested with authority over 
-another’s faith, the purity of Christianity was lost, and it 
could only fall further and further from its abandoned ideal. 
As I read the Gospels, every confession of a written dogma 
is treason to their religious simplicity ; and as I read the life 
of Jesus, is open infidelity to the spirituality of his thought. 
If Christendom as a whole stood upon this ground, all 
would be clear; but unfortunately it has chosen to demand 
a uniform belief, and must therefore accept the conse- 
quences. In one religion there cannot be two churches, two 
hierarchies, two orthodoxies,—there can be but one. 

I beg you to keep this point in view, for it is the central 
position of this course of lectures; it seems to me the cen- 
tral point of doctrinal Christianity. We have discovered 
Christian Orthodoxy. It is the creed of the Catholic 
~ Church. Exactly that. If Christendom takes any further 


_ step, it must be in the career of heresy. 


16 


‘es bas 


— 


Te GER EeeVeL I. 


MARCH 15, 1874. 


THE LUTHERAN HERESY. 


Tur Catholic Church, as we have seen, was the natural 
and necessary result of the demand, on the part of the 
Christian world, for a doctrinal faith. Although not hinted 
at in the Gospels themselves, although the gradual growth 
of many centuries, the Church yet lay distinctly prefigured 
in the first effort to establish an outward uniformity of 
Christian belief; and the successive features which, from 
_ generation to generation, it assumed, were but the legiti- 
- mate steps towards the fulfilment of this purpose. Yet its 
progress was never undisputed. Heresies lurked within its 
borders and threatened its peace, from the beginning, and 
were cast out only by the exercise of that supreme authority 
in matters of faith which the Church claimed to have received 
from Christ, and which even heretics rarely questioned. 
_ At last the time came, however, when this authority was 
itself challenged. The increasing pretensions of the papacy, 
together with the growing corruption of the priesthood, 
excited a deep distrust of the Church, which in the 16th 
century ripened into a formidable revolt. It is the story of 
this revolt, called the Protestant Reformation, that we are to 
follow to-night. 


First, however, let us look for a moment at the lesser 


120 


movements of the same kind which preceded the Reforma- 
tion. Long before the 16th century the claims of the 
Church had been called in question; not seriously enough 
to lead to an open rupture, yet enough to show that 
men’s thoughts were turning in that direction. Nearly 
two centuries before the Protestant Reformation, at a 
time when England had become greatly agitated over 
the question of paying tribute to the pope, an English 
priest, John Wycliffe (born 1324), not. only stoutly opposed 
the papal claim, but went so far as to style the pope “¢ Anti- 
Christ ;” ‘the proud, worldly Priest of Rome, the most 
cursed of Clippers and Purse-Kervers.”* Several bulls 


were issued against him, commanding inquiry into his erro- 


neous doctrines, but the only result was fresh denunciations _ 


from Wycliffe of monasticism, confession, indulgences, wor- 
ship of saints and images, and a denial of purgatory and the 
real-presence. Worse than this, Wycliffe turned his fine 
learning to account in translating the Scriptures for the first 


time into the popular tongue, and circulating them among 


SE ——————— =e 


a 


a ee 


the common people; thus helping to throw upon the preten- 3 


sions of the papacy that one light which the papacy can 


never bear. Wycliffe’s influence was chiefly felt, however, 


among scholars and men of letters, and his movement never 


reached popular dimensions. His doctrines were condemned — 


by the pope in 1377, and at the so-called Earthquake Council 

in London, in 1382, but he himself was allowed to continue 

in the discharge of parish duties, and died in 1384 
Wycliffe’s influence, however, did not cease with his 


death, nor was it confined to his own land. Early in the 


1Chambers’ Encyclopedia. Art. Wycliffe. ? Hase, p. 346. 


121 


next century, John Huss (born 1373), a preacher in Prague, 
stirred by Wycliffe’s writings, began to preach against the 
worldliness of the clergy and the abuses of the papacy, 
claimed rights for the congregation as well as the priests, 
insisted upon administering the cup at the sacrament, and 
denied that any visible head was needful to the Church. 
Anticipating the heresy of a later day, when the pope 
oered indulgences for sale to pay the expenses of a crusade, 
Huss openly preached against them, and burned the pope’s 
bull at the public pillory. These open acts of rebellion 
were dealt with in a summary way. At the Council of Con- 
stance, in 1415, Huss was declared “obstinately guilty of 
heresy,” was “degraded from his priesthood, and handed 
over to the secular power.” ‘He was now clothed in sacer- 


dotal vestments,” 


says the Catholic historian, St. Liguori,’ 
“which were immediately afterwards stripped off him, and a 
paper cap was put on his head, inscribed: ‘Behold the here- 
- siarch.’ He was now tied to the stake, and as the executioner 
4 applied the torch, the hypocrite was heard to exclaim, ‘Jesus 
Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me ;’ words 
inspired by the vainglorious desire of being considered to 
3 have died a martyr’s death; but we should not forget that 
the devil has martyrs, and infuses into them a false constancy. 
_ His ashes were cast into the lake, and thus the scene closed 
upon John Huss.”? His confederate, the scholarly and chiy- 
—alric Jerome of Prague, met the same fate the following 
year. 

By its dealings with those two offenders the Church 


showed by what means its authority was to be enforced. If 


1 Hist. of Heresies, p. 254. 2See also Hase, 347-9. 


122 


the means seem cruel, we must remember the necessities of 
the Church. If uniformity of belief is to be secured, it can 
only be, in any age, by the violent suppression of every 
heresy. The 15th century was more consistent than the 
19th. 

A reformer of quite another stamp appeared still later in 
the same century in Florence, and was the instigator of one 
of the most picturesque as well as impassioned religious 
revolutions which Christendom has known. In the midst of 
the classic revival in Italy, when Florence was at the height. 
of her luxury and splendor, and the Medici had gathered 
about them the brilliant company of artists that graced the 
close of the 15th century, a Dominican monk, Jerome 
Savonarola, began a crusade against the religious abuses 
and social corruptions which were tainting both church 
and people. The effect of his fierce Italian eloquence is 
described as unparalleled. The courtly city was struck 
dumb with shame, and paralyzed with fear. ‘ Women 
rose up suddenly,” we are told, “laid aside their splendid 
garments, and appeared again in modest attire; enemies 
became reconciled ; illegal gains were voluntarily given back. 
It even happened that a young and happy married pair 
separated and went both into the cloister.” * 

At the carnival of 1496 a pyramid was erected in the 
streets, formed of “musical instruments, books with love- 
songs, valuable pictures, dress, perfumes, and other unhal- | 
lowed superfluities,’ to which the crowd set fire, dancing 
around it while it burned.? Even artists were seized by the 
strange frenzy. Fra Bartolomeo threw his choicest paint- 


ings upon the burning pile, and went into a convent.® 


1Grimm’s Life of M. Angelo,1: 118. ?Grimm,1: 156. *Gr. 1: 357. 


123, . 


Perugino, who just at this time lost the fine inspiration of 
his earlier art, and sunk into a lifeless mannerism, and died a 
sceptic, felt this cold blight upon his genius and his faith, it 
has been suggested, when his great religious leader perished 
at the stake." Even M. Angelo is counted among Savana- 
rola’s adherents.” For a few years the power of Savanarola 
in Florence, both civil and religious, seemed boundless ; when 
suddenly as some of his political predictions failed of fulfil- 
ment, the fickle populace, joining hands with the rulers of 
the city against their idol, brought him to the stake. He 
was burned, in 1498, in front of the Government palace. 
The Church has never ranked this impetuous preacher 
among its heretics. His portrait, painted by Bartolomeo, 
encircled with the halo of sanctity, was offered for sale even 
in the streets of Rome,’ and hangs in the gallery of St. 
Mark to the present day.* 

Such were some of the precursors of the reformers of the 
sixteenth century. The fact that Huss and Savonarola were 
silenced only made it the more imperative that some one 
should speak. The power which the Roman Church places 
in the hands of its higher clergy cannot be safely borne 
By unless those who hold it are something more than human. 
That the popes and bishops of the fifteenth century were 


not more than human, is best shown, perhaps, by the follow- 


ing passages from Catholic writers. 

“The scenes of disorder,” writes the Abbé Darras, “ had 
necessarily produced a deplorable relaxation in the morals 
of the clergy. Intrigue, simony, corruption and venality 


were rending the bosom of the church. The private life of 


1Taine’s Italy. 2Grimm,1: 157. *Grimm, 1: 220. ‘ Hase, p. 353. 


124 


the clergy presented a sad spectacle; the spirit of the 


world, sensuality and avarice reigned supreme in their 
hearts. Relaxation of discipline had reached such a pitch 
that some doctors did not blush to maintain that marriage 
should be made lawful for the clergy; they thought they 


could best meet the scandal by making it legitimate.”* D6l- 


linger, who at the time of writing his history of the church, ~ 


was a good Catholic in high repute, gives the following 
account of the four popes who immediately preceded Leo 
X.; whose pontificates therefore prepared the way for the 
Reformation. “ After the death of Paul IL., in 1471, began 
days of woe and scandal for the See of Rome. Men were 
now raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignities whom the 
primitive church would not have admitted to the lowest 


»2 <<Sixtus IV. raised at once two of 


ranks of the clergy. 
his nephews to the rank of cardinals. One was loaded with 
benefices, bishoprics and abbeys in Italy, France and Spain ; 
was governor of several provinces, legatee of all Italy, and 
surrounded himself with a court of five hundred persons. 
The other was created cardinal at seventeen, and had six- 
teen bishops in his suite. For still another, a principality in 
Romagna was designed.”* Innocent VWIIL., “who gained 
the vote of the cardinals by promises of legations and rich 
benefices,” and was well known to have a large family of 


sons and daughters, enriched himself as follows: ‘To fill 


the papal treasury, fifty-two officers were appointed for 
expediting bulls, each paying twenty-five hundred ducats — 
for the office.”* Of Alexander VL, the next pope, father — 


of the notorious Cesar and Lucretia Borgia, he says ; “ That 


— 


1 Darras’ Hist. of Church, r: 644. ?Hist. of Church, tv: 219. 31v: 
220. IV ice. 


ee — 2 tronipate bye ‘ 78 


125 


which might well seem incredible, now came to pass. A 
man of whose immoral and vicious life no one could have 
been ignorant, was raised to the highest dignity of the 
church, only because he had by boundless avarice collected 
sufficient money to purchase the votes of fifteen out of the 
twenty cardinals.”* Of the next pope he says, ‘The war- 
like and conquest-seeking Julius IL., directed his efforts to 
restoring the strength of the church,”? and so had little time 
for purging it of its corruptions. Finally, of Leo X. him- 
self, Ddollinger writes; “Least of all could a pontiff like 
the splendor-loving and magnificent Leo interrupt the pro- 
miscuous and odious traftic of the tribunal.” “ Bishops con- 
tended with cardinals fur exorbitant privileges.”? 
Let me add to these a few words in relation to the same 
period from the historian Ranke. “The only concern of 
the Roman Curia was to engross to itself the greatest possi- 
ble number of vacancies and appointments.”* ‘The ordi- 
nances of the Roman Catholic Church and texts from scrip- 
ture were spoken of with a sneer; the mysteries of faith 
were treated with contempt.” ‘One no longer passes for 
an accomplished person in Rome,” were the words of a 
visitor of those days, “who does not entertain wrong views 
- of Christianity.”’® 
Such was the state of things in Rome, when in the year 
E 1510, an Augustinian pilgrim from Prussian Saxony wan- 
7 dered through the streets of the eternal city. Had he been 
a lover of art, his thoughts would perhaps have turned to 


_ other things than those which vexed his passionate soul, and 


———_— 


~~ 1Darras’ Hist. of Church, tv: 225. ?1v: 229. *1v: 237. * Hist. of 
Papacy, 1: 52. ®Do.1: 64. 


17 


126 


he might have judged the scenes around him in a different 
spirit; for in the splendid palace of Julius H., Michael 
Angelo was sketching on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, 
prophets and sibyls of almost superhuman majesty, while 
in neighboring halls, Raphael, born the same year with our 
German monk, was illustrating in a vast series of triumph- 
ant designs, the expulsion of the royal French invader from - 
the sacred soil of Italy, the miraculous victory of the 
papacy over its sacrilegious foes, the eternal supremacy of 
the church over the Pagan world. Little heed however did 
the young friar pay to vanities like these. Still less to the 
marble gods and goddesses which the new-born classic zeal 
was daily bringing to the light of day from beneath the soil 
of Rome. What lay upon his troubled heart was the condi- 
tion of the clergy of his church. How they talked of 
sacred things! bought and sold the offices of Christ ! smiled 
at the mass, and hurried from the confessional to their 
beastly debaucheries !! Little will it take when he returns 
to his chair at Wittenberg to fan the coals of his indigna- 
tion to a consuming flame. This German pilgrim was Mar- 
tin Luther, then twenty-seven years old, already a preacher 
of repute and lecturer upon the Holy Seriptures at the 
Saxon university at Wittenberg, of whom, before he went 
to Rome, the rectors of his university had ventured the pre-_ 
diction : “This monk will puzzle our doctors and bring in a — 
new doctrine.” 
The needed provocation came within a few years after his — 
return from Rome. Leo X., who had succeeded Julius IL, 
and needed funds to carry out his predecessor’s gigantic ? 


1 See Hase, p. 862. 2 Chambers’ Encyclopedia. Art. Luther. 


i 


127 


‘plans for the reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Peter, 
proposed to obtain them, as other popes had done before 
him, by the offer of indulgences through all Catholic lands. 
The granting of indulgences, based on the power of the 
church to remit sins, long claimed by the popes,. and 
recently, under Alexander VI., extended to the rescue of 
souls out of Purgatory,’ rested upon the idea that the merits 
of Christ and the Virgin were so far in excess of the needs 
of the human race, that the superabundance might be 
turned to account, at the discretion of popes and bishops, 
for the remission of the temporal punishment of sins. 
“The treasure of indulgences,” says the Abbé Darras, 
“which can be dispensed only by popes and bishops, is sup- 
plied from the superabundant satisfaction of Jesus Christ; a 
single drop of the blood of the God-man would have been a 
thousand times sufficient to redeem thousands of worlds. 
To these exhaustless springs of merit are added the 
abounding merits of Mary, who never had a fault to 
expiate, with those of numberless saints who have suffered 
for justice’s sake, and practiced long-continued penance to 
atone for slight imperfections.”” 


| + With this exhaustless fountain to draw from, and so holy 


an enterprise to further as the building of St. Peter’s, it 
- would be strange indeed if Leo left any of his subjects’ sins 


unremitted where there was money to purchase exemption 


from punishment. Half the profits in every Catholic land 
the pope claimed as his own.? The dealer of these indul- 
gences, in Germany, the Dominican Tetzel, passed through 
the country in 1516 in a gay carriage, escorted by three 


1 Ranke, 1: 54. ? Hist. of Church, 1: 46. * Hase, p. 363. 


128 


horsemen, with the papal bull on a velvet cushion before 
him, and as he drew near each town or village the populace 
came forth in eager crowds to meet him. Entering a church 
at once and mounting the pulpit, he shouted in a sonorous 
voice, “Ye priests, ye nobles, ye tradesmen, ye wives, ye 
maidens, and ye young men, hearken to your departed 
parents and friends who cry to you from the bottomless 
abyss: ‘We are enduring horrible torment! a small alms 
would deliver us; you can give it, and you will not!’” 
‘The very moment that the money clinks against the hot- 
tom of the chest, the soul escapes trom purgatory and flies 
free to heaven.”?! 

A less impetuous soul than Martin Luther’s might have 
been stirred by such scenes and words as these: and we are | 
not surprised to find him indignantly denouncing the whole’ 
system to his bishop, as a “scandalous traffic,” and, in a ser- — 
mon to a crowded assembly, declaring that ‘“ indulgences 
instead of expiating, leave the Christian in the filth of his 
sins. Give first to your needy brother,” he told his hear-_ 
ers, “and then if you have means bestow them on the 
Basilica of St. Peter.”? 

The crowds who had collected to hear Luther’s sermon 
went away profoundly moved; yet the sale of indulgences 
continued, and Luther was not one to take any backward 
step. About a month later, on All Saints’ Day, Octobér 
31, 1517, as multitudes of German pilgrims were pouring ~ 
into the Catholic Church of Wittenberg to gaze upon the 
relics which the elector had placed there, and thereby . 


receive plenary indulgence, their attention was arrested by 


1D’Aubigné’s Reformation, 1: 209, 212. *Darras, m: 47, 48. 


129 


a paper nailed upon the gate, containing ninety-five distinct 
propositions against the doctrine of indulgences. Pions pil- 


grims shuddered as they read such blasphemies as these : 


1. “When our Master and Lord Jesus Christ says 
‘Repent,’ he means that the whole lie of his faithful ser- 
vants upon earth should be a constant and continual repent- 
ance.” 


2. “This cannot be understood of the sacrament of pen- 
ance as administered by the priest.” 


6. “The Pope cannot remit.any condemnation: but can 
only declare and confirm the remission that God himself 
has given.” 


8. “The laws of ecclesiastical penance can only be 
imposed on the living, and in no wise respect the dead.” 


95. “The same power which the Pope has over Purga- 
tory in the church at large, is possessed by every bishop in 
his diocese, and every curate in his parish.” 


27. ‘Those persons preach human inventions who pre- 
tend that, at the very moment when the money sounds in 
the strong box, the soul escapes from Purgatory.” 


28. “This is certain; that, as soon as the money sounds, 
avarice and the love of gain come in, grow and multiply.” 


32. ‘Those who fancy themselves sure of their salvation | 
by indulgences will go to the devil with those who teach 
them this doctrine.” 


36. “Every Christian who feels true repentance for his 
sins has perfect remission from the punishment and from the 
sin, without the need of indulgences.”* 


The Protestant Reformation had begun. In those daring 


1P’Aubigné, 1: 239-42. 


130 


- words, the great heresy which had been trembling on men’s 
lips for years was spoken, and the ninety-five theses became 
at once the rallying cry for a new faith. If man’s sins 
could really be remitted through his own repentance simply, 
without the intervention of the Church, if faith alone could 
accomplish his salvation, with no aid from the works of pen- 
ance or confession, if priest and curate had the same power 
over sins as Pope or bishop, the question must follow at 
once: What need of Pope or Church? And shat question 
was Protestantism. | 

The posting of these theses was Luther’s own act; done, 
as he assures us, without consultation even with his most 
intimate friends. What the response to it would be, he did 
not know. No more does he seem to have been aware of 
the ultimate bearings of the truth he had so indignantly 
uttered; for he believed in all sincerity that the credit of 
the Pope was compromised by the traffic in indulgences, 
and that Pope and Church would sustain him against the 


monks and make his cause their own “I entered on this 


controversy,” he said at a later day, “without any settled 


purpose or inclination, and entirely unprepared. I call God 
to witness this who sees the heart.”? The effect, however, 
was instantaneous. Luther’s theses spread like wild-fire. 


“Tn the space of a fortnight,” says the contemporary histo- 


rian Myconius, quoted by D’Aubigné, ‘they had spread | 


over Germany, and within a month they had ran through 


all Christendom as if angels themselves had been the bear-- 7 


ers of them to all men.” “They were afterwards,” says 
D’Aubigné, “ translated into Dutch and into Spanish, and a 


1p’ Aubigné, 1: 238. 2 Do. p. 245. 


an 


13] 


traveller earried them for sale as far as Jerusalem.” ‘ Before 
a month had elapsed, they had found their way to Rome.”? 
The students at Wittenberg, after the wont of students, 
received the rebellious document with shouts of applause, 
and burned Tetzel’s answer to it in the public square 
Others besides young students hailed this act with joy. 
Reuchlin and Erasmus, great theologians of the day, 
applauded Luther’s courage; the prior of Steinlausitz, and 
bishop of Wurzburg, publicly expressed their delight; even 
the emperor Maximilian read the theses, understood their 
aim and admired their power; the Elector of Saxony, 
Frederic the Wise, though cautious and anxious at first, 
became soon Luther's chief supporter and protector; Albert 
Durer, first of German painters, sent him a gift in recogni- 
tion of his services to the Church, while Leo contented him- 
self with saying, “It is a drunken German who has written 
these lines; when he is sober he will talk very differently.”* 
Luther clung long to the idea that his doctrines were no 
attack upon the Pope or Church. As late as 1520 he wrote 
to Leo a letter full of personal regard, addressing him as 
the “ Most Holy Father in God,” and saying, “1 have never 
ceased by prayers and sighs to pray God for your prosperity 
and that of your pontificate.”* But the result was inevita- 
b e. At the very time when Luther was thus addressing 
the Pope, the bull of excommunication, once so fearful a 
pe ePen, was in the hands of the papal nuncio, and was soon 
known throughout rebellious Germany.® On June 16, 1520, 
the bull was issued; condemning forty-one propositions 


-1D’Aub. 1: 248. 2Darras, 1: 49. ®D’Aub. 1: 250-207. #D’Aub. UO: 
117. Do. 122. 


132 


taken from Luther’s writings, ordering his works to be 
burned, and pronouncing excommunication upon their 
author unless he recanted within sixty days. Luther 
responded to this, December 10th, 1520, by leading a pro- 
cession of students out of the city, and throwing the bull, 
with the book of the canon law, into the flames.’ At 
Erfurth, the students, with greater levity, tore copies of the 
bull in pieces, and threw them into the river, with the pro- 
fane pun, “Since it is a bubble (bulla) let us see it float.”° 
One further step in the condemnation of this dangerous 
heresy remained. In 1521, the Imperial Diet was to assem- 
ble at Worms, where the young emperor, Charles V., was to 
meet, for the first time, his German subjects. The Diet was 
called upon to confirm the papal edict by placing Luther 
under the ban of the empire ; and Luther was summoned to 
appear in person. A safe-conduct from the emperor was 
given him, as a surety against violence; but Luther could 
not forget that just a century before, Huss, under similar 
charges, and with a similar safe-conduct, had gone to impris- 
onment and death. The anxiety of Luther’s friends was 
great therefore, and they expostulated earnestly with him 
against venturing upon such sure destruction. Luther does 
not seem to have faltered. ‘“ Were there as many devils in 
Worms as there are roof-tiles,” he said with characteristic 
vigor of speech, “I would go on.” The streets of Worms 
were thronged as he passed through on his way to the Hall 
of the Diet, and the solemn words greeted him from the 
house-tops, as though it were clear that he must either 


recant or die; “ Whosoever denieth me before men!”* 


1 Hase, 369. 2 Do. 3870. #D’Aub. 1: 125. 4 Carlyle’s Heroes, p. 167. 


133 


‘Their fears were vain. Luther stood firm. “ Until con- 
-vinced by Holy Scriptures,” he said as he closed his defence 
before Emperor, Elector and Diet, “I can and will retract 
nothing; for it is neither safe nor expedient to act against 
conscience. Here I stand; I can do nothing else; God 
help me! Amen!”! Through the personal influence of 
the Elector, who had himself declined the imperial crown, 
and had contributed greatly to the election of Charles, 
Luther’s safe-conduct was sacredly observed, and although 
he was formally condemned by the Diet; yet his defence 
won the hearts of many who pronounced his sentence.’ 

_ As at this point the Lutheran schism was virtually com- 
plete, and as the further progress of the movement has 
~ been often told, let us stop here to ask what was the theo- 
_ logical significance of the movement? In what did its 
departure from Catholicism consist ? 

The ground which Luther took at the beginning, as we 
have seen, in attacking indulgences, was simply that sins are 
remitted, not by popes or bishops, in the discharge of certain 
obligations, but freely and graciously upon repentance and 
faith. In this position, as Luther afterwards saw, lay the 
4 great doctrine of Justification by Faith not Works, which 
became the doctrinal basis of Protestantism. To this he 
attributed the success of his reform. “It is doctrine that 
we attack in the followers of the papacy;” said he, “ Huss 
and Wyckliffe only attacked their life; but in attacking their 
doetrine we seize the goose by the throat. I have overcome 
the Pope because my doctrine is according to God, and _ his 
is the doctrine of the devil.”* That he had really overcome 


1 Haase, p. 371. 2Hase, 370, 372. % D’Aubigné, 1: 248. 
| 18 


134 


the Pope, Luther did not question. Here is another assertion 
of the fact which I give for its style. ‘The’ world is a vast 
and grand game of cards, made up of emperors, kings and 
princes. The Pope for several centuries has beaten emper- 
ors, princes and kings. They have been put down and 
taken up by him. Then came our Lord God; he dealt the 
cards; he took the most worthless of them all, and with 
it he has beaten the Pope, the conqueror of the kings of 
the earth. ! * . There is the ace of God.”? | 

But however plainly the reformers afterwards saw in their 
movement the downfall of the Pope, and Justification by 
Faith, they did not see them at first, but reached them only 
by successive steps. In a dispute in 1519 with Dr. Eck 
and Carlstadt, when his opponents insisted that the Roman 
Church had always held the supremacy, Luther found him- 
self denying, for the first time, on grounds of Scripture and 
history, that the Pope was the one vicar of Christ, or the 
universal bishop of the Church. It was in this same contro- 
versy that the young Philip Melanchthon first appeared, 
whose great learning, and thoroughly-trained mind, deter- 3 
mined from that hour, quite as much as did Luther’s pro- 
founder convictions, the form of Protestant theology.’ : 

In 1520, in his “ Address to the Christian nobles,” Luther q 
took the ground that the strength of Romanism lay in its — 
appeal to the spiritual as above secular power, and so was — 
led to the doctrine that all Christians alike belong to the — 
spiritual order.? Beginning by declaring bishops and — 
priests equal to popes, he thus ended by proclaiming every 3 


true Christian equal to the head of the Church. This — 


1)’Aubigné, Preface, vu. ? Hase, 366. ?Hase, 368. 


135 


address was followed immediately by his tract called the 
“Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” in which he took the 
still stronger ground that the papacy was not a human, but 
a devilish institution, claimed, like Huss before him, that the 
cup should be administered to the laity, and rejected all 
sacraments but baptism, penance and the Lord’s Supper.t 
Thus far Luther had had little to do but attack certain 
falsehoods and corruptions of the papacy, and assert spirit- 
ual freedom. How far he was actually ready to go in the 
doctrine of freedom, was a question which he was forced 
abruptly to answer in 1524, by a dangerous revolt of the 
German peasants, who made his doctrines their pretext for 
rebelling against both secular and spiritual nobility, and 
claiming community of goods and universal equality. In 
response to this, Luther issued at once a fiery address to 
‘the Princes of Saxony, urging the principle of absolute 
obedience, and even advising the princes to slaughter the 
§ peasants like so many mad dogs. “ Kill them,” he writes, 
“as the Jews were ordered to kill the Amorites and 
Canaanites;” a too legitimate example which was most 
faithfully followed.? With contingencies like these to meet, 
Luther was not slow in concluding that not only must the 
Catholic Church be overthrown, but another must be ready 
to take its place.® 

It was not until this same year, four years after his 
excommunication, seven years after his first act of rebellion, 
that Luther laid aside his friar’s frock; having clung till 


then to his monastic habit with the same lingering affection 


 1Hase 369. 2Byn brieff an die Farst. z. Sachsen, Vv. d. auffru- 
rischen geyst. Wittenberg, 1524. % Hase, p. 378. 


136 


with which he held to the papacy long after the principles 
of the papacy had been finally abandoned. One year later, 
another event occurred which, in the eyes of the Church, 
stamped the heretic amd his heresy with far deeper infamy 
than all that had preceded it, and showed that no retreat 
was contemplated. In June, 1525, the former Augustinian 
monk, Martin Luther, was married to the former Cistercian 
nun, Catharine von Bora. 

In 1529, at the Second diet of Speyer, on occasion of a 
protest offered by several of the princes engaged in the 
reform, the party received the name of Protestants. In 
1530, at the Diet of Augsburg, summoned by Charles V., 
after his peace with France and Rome, for the purpose of 


healing the division in his German Church, a statement of © 


faith, known as the Confession of Augsburg, was drawn 
up, at his request, in behalf of the protesting states, by 
Melanchthon. This Confession, which is interesting to us as 
the first doctrinal formula of Protestantism, begins with an 
affirmation of the Trinity, as based upon the Symbol of Nice, 
together with a condemnation of the Manichean and Arian 
heresies, and contains twenty-eight articles; of which those 
differing most from the Catholic dogmas are Article IV., on 
Justification by Faith; Article VI., Of Good Works; as 
excellent in themselves, but of no worth with God; Article 
VIL, Of the Church; as the congregation of those among 
whom the Gospel is preached in its purity; Article PO.8!: 
Of the Invocation of Saints; which is condemned; Article 
XXIT., Of Communion in both kinds. 

This Confession, as I have intimated, was by no means 


1 Hase, p. 381. 


Ny 


137 


accepted by the reformers themselves as a complete utter- 
ance of their faith. Even during the same session of the 
_ Diet, it was supplemented by Melanchthon’s Apology ; and 
afterwards, in 1537, by the “ Articles of Smalkald,” drawn 
up by Luther himself; to which again Luther’s Lesser and 
_ Greater Catechism must afterwards be added, before the 
creed of the Lutheran Church was considered complete.’ 
The first symbol of Protestantism, therefore, consists of a 
Confession, an Apology, Articles, a Lesser and a Greater 
~ Catechism ; a striking proof of the difficulty which Protest- 
antism encountered the moment it abandoned the simple 
work of reform and attempted to find for itself a doctrinal 
basis. | 
Let it not be supposed, however, that even these state- 
ments were easily agreed upon, or betokened a pertect 
accord on the part of that one fraction of the Protestant 
~ Church which called itself distinctively Lutheran. To under- 
stand perfectly the history of the times, it is important to 
notice some of the divisions within the Lutheran Church 
which these voluminous confessions hardly succeeded in 
removing or concealing. 
Not even the fundamental doctrine of Justification by 
Faith, passed unchallenged or was accepted without a strug- 
lages Luther himself took extreme ground. “Faith alone 
saves ;” he said; “human acts have no merit; good works, 
on which alone the Church relies in its penances and contes- 
sions, are useless.” “No,” answered Melanchthon, “ not 
useless ; good works may be necessary, though not merito- 


yious. Indeed the will of man must conspire with the grace 


1 Hase, 383, 390. 


138 


of God.” “No,” said Luther, “ God’s willis omnipotent ; 
man’s disappears. God predestines all to happiness or 
misery.” These quotations represent an actual controversy 
between these two friends; from which arose on Luther’s 
side an Augustinianism more Augustinian than that of the 
Catholic Church. His immediate followers went so far as 
to claim that “ good works are pernicious to salvation,” and 
branded the followers of Melanchthon with the opprobrious 
title of Synergists. To be called “Synergist” was of 
course more than Protestant patience could endure; and the 
little German Church was for many years rent by a furious 
strife, in which university was pitted against university, 
Wittenberg against the more Orthodox Zena, and in which 
the fierce alternations of victory and defeat recalled 
vividly those hours of early Christendom when Arians 
and Athanasians succeeded each other so swiftly that 
it was hard to tell to which the Christian empire really 
belonged. For a time Synergism seemed doomed to defeat ; 
and the Synergist, Strigelius, was thrown into prison; but 
finally it recovered its power, and the Anti-Synergists were 
in 1561 banished from the country.! 

But the bitterest controversy which the young church 
knew, and perhaps the bitterest which Christendom has ever 
known, was that which arose over the Lord’s Supper. 
Luther, while surrendering the Catholic doctrine of transub- 
stantiation, as carrying with it the supernatural power of the 
priesthood, yet insisted upon the actual presence of Christ’s 
body in the elements; to designate which he adopted the 
convenient term consubstantiation. When Christ says, 


1Hase, 406. 


139 


“this is my body,” argued Luther, he meant it. The bread, 
itis true, does not become his body at the word of the 
priest; yet none the less is Christ’s body literally there and 
literally eaten by the believer. Melanchthon, on the other 
hand, like Calvin, leaned to a spiritual interpretation of the 
words of Jesus; but insisted that neither Luther’s interpre- 
tation nor Calvin’s was essential to true communion. 
Once more a warm controversy between the two leaders, 
and a still warmer strife between their followers; the extent 
of which may be conjectured from the fact that Melanch- 
thon was considered far too yielding, because he was willing 
even to maintain fellowship with the Swiss when they inter- 
preted Christ’s language in a figurative sense. Luther, on 
the contrary, angrily refused all overtures, and when Zwin- 
gli offered his hand in token of reconciliation, openly 
rejected it. His followers remained true to this spirit after 
his death. When John of Laski was driven from England 
for his denial of the real presence, he could find no asylum 
in Lutheran Germany, but was treated as a robber, poisoner 
and martyr of the devil. The followers of Melanchthon 
were obliged to receive a heretical title once more, and 
‘under the name of Philippists were hunted down and at last 
imprisoned or banished from the land. In 1573, when 
they were finally exterminated, a medal was struck in com- 
memoration of this “triumph of Christ over human reason 
and the devil.”! 

So hard was the path which the new religion had to tread 
in reaching its doctrinal expression and doctrinal unity. 


2 Pe a . a ee» | TAard 
Indeed, years after its ‘Oonfession of Augsburg,” years 


= 
-1#Hase, 389, 404, 407. 


140 


after its “Articles of Smalkald,” each of which was accepted 
at the time as the final statement of its faith, so many and 
bitter were still the controversies within the Lutheran 
Church, respecting the fundamental principles of Protes- 
tantism, that it was found necessary, in 1577, as the last 
endeavor to secure doctrinal harmony, to draw up what was 
called a “Form of Concord,’ in which all disputed points 
were handled as delicately as possible, and which, instead of 
being exposed to the hazards of a general synod, was offered 
for final acceptance to the imperial Diet, whose scent for 
heresy, it was supposed, would not be quite so keen as that 
of professed theologians.* 

Severe as were its own doctrinal strifes, however, the | 
young church could by no means deny itself the luxury of 
heretics or of persecutions. The following imperfect list 
will show that in this respect Lutheranism did not feel the 
loss of popes or councils, and could treat a dissenter as 
loftily as though it had a creed and tribunal of its own. In 
1566, certain doctrines concerning Justification, which were 
hostile to Luther’s, were pronounced heretical, and Funck, 
the main advocate of these doctrines, was executed.? In 
1560, as we have already seen, Synergism was declared 
heresy, and Strigelius imprisoned ; in 1573, during the Sac- 
ramentarian controversy, Wigand and Hesshusius were 
expelled from their professorships at Jena, and from the 
country ;° in 1602, as final fruits of the same strife, Nicho- 
las Crell, Chancellor of the Palatinate, after ten years’ 


imprisonment, was beheaded ;* in 1631, Kepler, who was a 


1Hase, 410. Hagenbach’s Hist. of Doc. 1: 146. 2? Hase, p. 404. 3 Hase, 
p. 408. * Hase, p. 411. 


141 


devout Lutheran, yet who found in Protestantism no kindlier 
-a home for scientific thought than Galileo had found in 
-Romanism, “was driven from the Lord’s fold as an unsound 
sheep,” because he doubted whether the Lord’s body was 
truly omnipresent." 
Such, in very brief outline, was the great religious move- 
ment of the 16th century, which we are accustomed to 
-eall the Reformation, which the Catholic Church styles 
the Lutheran Heresy. Which name is right? In the 
title to this discourse, as you have noticed, I have chosen 
the latter; and I have done this out of simple regard 
for historic truth. If there is any such thing as heresy 
in the Christian Church, if Arianism or Pelagianism is 
heresy, then Lutheranism is certainly heresy. So far as 
Protestantism is content to be merely a protest in behalf 
‘of pure Christianity against the corruptions and tyrannies of 
the papacy, it has claim to the title of a Reformation ; the 
Pornent it assumes a system of doctrinal faith, and raises 
a theological standard of its own, it must step into the ranks 
tot heresy. The point is a simple one. Scripture having in 
itself no doctrines, and all Christian doctrines being, there- 
ore, the creation of the Church, to forsake the Church is 
to forsake the doctrines, and forsake the only authority on 
which doctrines are based; so that the only alternative of 
Catholicism is heresy. 
Let us see how the case stands. Up to a certain point 
Protestantism accepts the decrees of the Church. Luther- 
anism, as we have seen, bases its belief in the Trinity 


: entirely on the Symbol of Nice, as indeed it could not rest it 


‘1 Hase, p. 411. 
! 19 


142 


elsewhere. It appends to its own confession what it calls 
the three General Symbols of the Church, the Apostolic, the 
Nicene, the Athanasian. But the decrees of the Council of 
Trent concerning Lutheranism, are just as binding as those 
of Nice concerning Arianism. What sanction has the arti- 
cle which condemns the faith of Arius, that does not belong 
to the articles which condemn the belief of Luther? Do 
you say it was the Universal Church that condemned Arius ? 
But it was the same Church, acting under precisely the same 


forms, which condemned Luther? Do you say it was the 


General Councils of Nice, of Ephesus, of Chalcedon, which 


condemned the ancient doctrines? So it was the General 
Council of Trent which condemned these later doctrines. 
Do you say it was only a vote of a majority which made 
Trent Catholic and Augsburg heresy ? So it was only the 
vote of a majority at Nice which made Athanasius and the 
Trinity Orthodoxy, Arius and Arianism heresy. Do you 
say it was mere papal tyranny which carried the decision of 
Trent? So it was mere imperial tyranny which carried the 
decisions of Nice and Chaleedon. Do you say papal suprema- 
cy is no part of the Gospel, whatever Councils may say, 
and, therefore, no essential part of Christianity? Neither is 


“three persons in one,” or “two natures in one person” part 


of the Gospel, whatever Councils may say, and is, therefore, — 


no essential part of Christianity. Do you say the Christian 
believer has an indeteasible right to accept or reject the 
purely human decrees of Trent? So has the Christian 
believer an indefeasible right to accept or reject the purely 
human decrees of Nice. Do you say the Catholic Church 
was corrupt in the 16th century, and needed change and 


renewal? But was not the Catholic Church corrupt in the 


143 


4th century, when three hundred and eighteen bishops 
accepted their theology at the hands of a despotic emperor 
fresh from Paganism? or in the 5th century, when armed 
monks drove dissenting bishops under tables until they 
_ signed the decrees of the Council, and one archbishop kicked 
another archbishop to death ? 

These arguments are all either sound or unsound. If 
unsound, Lutheranism is of course wrong; if sound, then 
Arianism and Nestorianism and Pelagianism are right. 
_ Every reason which justifies the Orthodox Protestant in deny- 
ing Trent and the Papacy, justifies you and me in denying 
Nice and the Deity of Christ, Constantinople and the Holy 
‘Spirit, Chalcedon and the Incarnation, the Athanasian Creed 
and the Trinity. Every argument which would make you 
~ or me accept Nice and the Trinity, would make the Ortho- 
dox Protestant accept Trent and the Papacy and Priesthood 
and Indulgences. 

Luther was right, I agree; but in being right he justified 
the deniers of all the doctrines which issued from preced- 
ing Councils; that is, all the doctrines of Orthodoxy. 
Luther was right, I agree; but in being right, he has 
destroyed, so far as his doctrines prevail, not the Papacy 
alone, but Papacy and Orthodoxy both. I trust this point 
will be understood ; exactly what this arch-heretic overthrew. 
He overthrew Orthodoxy ; 7. ¢., outward uniformity of faith ; 
authoritative dogma. I trust it will be understood exactly 
what he so heroically, however unintentionally, established. 
‘He established absolute independence of individual belief, 

as against pope and council, and church and creed. His 
movement was a glorious triumph so long as it was a 


movement for freedom from ecclesiastical rule; 1t was a 


144 


conspicuous failure, the moment it tried to establish an 
ecclesiastical authority of its own, for which it had left 
itself no basis. 

The history of Protestantism and its present condition 
amply bear out this statement. We often hear of a Protest- 
ant Church; but where is there such a thing? I for one 
have never seen it. Churches are not a Church, any more 
than families are a state, or regiments an army, or drops 
of water a lake, or bits of plank a ship. No Protest- 
ant Church exists, or ever has existed. A hundred 
warring sects, each with heart full of jealousies and 
fears, each selfishly intent upon its own enlargement, each 
changing its faith with every year, do not constitute a 
Chureh, nor offer the material out of which a Church can 
be formed. Men speak, too, of Protestant Orthodoxy ; but 
if it exists, where is it to be found? Who confesses it? 
What Council has framed it? What Church subscribes to 
it? What Evangelical Alliance has adopted it? Who can 
point me to a single article of its creed? Who can show 
me authority for a single Protestant doctrine? In a word, 
Catholicism and Orthodoxy are synonymous terms; against 
which are to be set Protestantism and Heresy. All Protest- 
ants are heretics alike; and once being heretics the varying 
shades of their heresy are of slight account. 

Protestantism, in our eyes, was a triumph of pure Chris- 
tianity. Yet the triumph lay, not in establishing a new 
church and new doctrines against the old, but in emancipa- 
ting the soul from all ecclesiastical fetters, and bidding it 


re-assume its spiritual freedom. 


= we! 


Ons 


a << ws 
PRR me See 


Pee eU RE. Vit. 


MARCH 29, 1874. 


| TRINITARIAN HERESIES. 


_ I wave spoken thus far of the Protestant Reformation 
only in its connection with Martin Luther. But this of 
course is not the whole of Protestantism. Luther’s schism, 
in renouncing the source of all doctrinal authority, made 
other schisms possible and inevitable. This fact appeared 
at the outset. Not only is there, as we have shown, no 
Protestant Church or Protestant Orthodoxy to-day; there 
never has been either the one or the other. The worst 
prophecies of Luther’s foes, on this point, were fully veri- 
fied. Protestantism fell asunder at the first touch, and has 
crumbled year by year into an increasing mass of frag- 
ments. Its history is, and must always be, the history of 
countless sects. 

As it does not lie within the scope of the present course 
of lectures to take up all these fragments of heretical 
Christianity, I propose to limit myself to such as will best 
illustrate this tendency in Protestantism of which I have 
spoken, towards continual disintegration. While one party 
among the early Protestants were anxious to retain as many 
as possible of the Church doctrines and keep up in the new 


146 


faith the form of Orthodoxy, another party wished to make 
the reform a radical one, and get back behind all doctrines 
as near as possible to primitive Christianity. This division 
showed itself, as in earlier days, mainly upon the question ot 
the nature of Christ; and can be best considered, therefore, 
under the two heads of Trinitarian and Unitarian heresies. 
Let us look to-night at the two leading movements, in Swit- 
zerland and England, which, in addition to Lutheranism, 
constitute Trinitarian heresy. 

In the year 1516, a year before Luther nailed his theses 
to the church-gate at Wittenberg, the pilgrims to the clois- 
ter of Maria-Einsiedeln, in Switzerland, were startled by the 
words of a bold young priest, telling them that their prayers — 
and gifts to the Virgin, whom they had come especially 
to worship, were of no avail. For years they, and their 
fathers betore them, had come annually to this sacred place, 
read the inscription over the shrine, “ Here is complete 
absolution for guilt and for punishment of sins,” and ob- 
tained from the little black image of the Virgin before which 
they knelt, recovery from many a painful disease ; yet here 
was a preacher of the convent who assured them that Mary 
could not help them. ‘The more exalted Mary is above 
all creatures,” said he, “the more profound her reverence 
toward God her Son, and the more abhorrent will it be to 
her to receive honor as divine.” 

It mattered little, as you see, from what point the new 
truth started. In Germany it was the sale of indulgences, 
in Switzerland it was the worship of the Virgin, that 
aroused the latent discontent and kindled the flames of the 


1Christoffel’s Life of Zwingli, pp. 25, 26. 


147 


_ Reformation. The young priest was Zwingli} a very differ- 
ent person from Luther, less impetuous and rude, more 
scholarly and gentle, yet with quite as positive a purpose, 
and holding quite as definite a place in the great work of 
the Reformation. Zwingli was a devoted student of the 
Classics, and had. some strange notions about the philoso- 
phers and poets in whose grand words he found such 
joy. “Plato,” he said, “drank from the sacred fount;” 
- Seneca was “a holy man;” Pindar “speaks of the gods, in 


; Sse Dy) 
language so divine 


that the very knowledge of the true 
God must be there. Indeed, Pindar, according to Zwingli, 
“throws light upon our Scriptures,” and helps us to read 
them aright. From the classics, Zwingli turned with equal 
_ zeal to the Greek Scriptures, wrote out the Epistles of Paul 
in the original tongue, and committed them to memory, 
and made for himself the startling discovery that ‘“ Popery 
is not in the Scripture.” While Luther was still disclaiming 
all hostility to the papacy, and seeking to avoid a rupture 
with Leo X., Zwingli declared openly, “The papacy must 
Beall,”’® 

Two years later, this same preacher appeared in Zurich, 
openly denouncing the sale of indulgences, as Luther had 
done a year before in Germany ;4 and in 1523, @ie Zurich 
Council issued a decree against images and the mass, 
declaring that everything must be proved by the Scriptures 
themselves; and also, in the same year, publicly endorsed 
the new heresy in the following terms: “ We, the Burgo- 


masters, have resolved that said Huldrich Zwingli continue, 


1 Born, 1484. 2 Ranke’s Reformation, p. 305; Christoffel, p. 986; St. 
Liguori, p. 293. Chris. p. 31; Ranke. #Chris. p. 37. ° Hase, a 
Dorner’s Protestant Theology, 1: 232. 


148 


as hitherto, to preach the Holy Scriptures.” How great a 
novelty it was in those days to “preach the Holy Scrip- — 
tures,” may be guessed from the following anecdote. When 
Zwingli advised the priests, in public council, to read their 
Bibles, the Pastor of Schlieren arose and gravely answered 5 
“¢ How can one who has a small living buy a Testament? I 
have such a poor living, and must here put in a word.”? , 

Thus the Reformation sprang into being, almost at the 
same hour, in two distant lands and under two distinct lead- 
ers. How did these two leaders stand related to each 
other? is our next question. They joined forces, of course, 
and made common cause against a common foe ? : 

It is strange that they did not. Stranger still that instead 
of becoming brothers in the glorious cause, they became 
bitter foes. Strangest of all that the bitterness of their 
enmity should have sprung out of the most sacred mystery 
of their common faith. That two such men should have 
differed in their methods and their beliefs is not to be won- 
dered at; but that they should have failed to realize what 
that difference meant, that there was not magnanimity 
enough on both sides, or devotion enough to the great 
Reform to enable them to forget their differences, is the 
most discreditable fact connected with the early history of 
our Protestant faith. The story of this discord is a mortify- 
ing one; but it must not be passed wholly by. 

Several years before Luther and Zwingli met, efforts had 
been made to unite them; but an instinct of hostility 
showed itself from the outset. When Luther’s name first 


came into notoriety, and every reformer found himself 


1 Chris. p. 107. 2Christoff. p. 108. 


BeBe» 


149 


called Lutheran, Zwingli, with perhaps natural sensitive- 
ness, while acknowledging Luther’s great services, stoutly 
refused to be called by his name. “ Who called me Luth- 
eran,” he asked, “ when I began to preach these doctrines in 
1516, before a single individual in this part of the country 
had heard the name of Luther? Why not call me Paulean 
because I preach as Paul preached? Let not the name of 
Christ be changed into that of Luther, for Luther has not 
died for us.”? 

The great point of controversy between them, however, 
was the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Luther’s view of 
the Swiss ideas upon this subject, and the chances of agree- 
ment between the two parties in the beginning, may be 
:. gathered from these words, written in 1527. The Land- 
I grave of Hesse, conscious of the necessity of uniting all the 
friends of reform against the Emperor, made an effort to 
bring Luther and Zwingli together, and received this 
response: from Luther; ‘“ Well, since they thus insult all 
reason, I will give them a Lutheran warning. Cursed be 
this concord! cursed be this charity! down, down with it, 
to the bottomless pit of hell! These enthusiasts, who mur- 
der Jesus Christ, my Lord, wish to murder me also.””? 

What did he mean by “murdering Jesus Christ the 
Lord,” and why this explosion of wrath? These questions 
cannot be better answered than by a short extract from the 
debate which actually took place between Luther and 
Lwingli, soon after these words were written. The Land- 


grave, convinced that such men needed only to meet face to 


— 1Chris. pp. 73-75. ? D’Aubigné’s oe in Germany and Swit- 
zerland, Iv: 80. 
20 


150 


face to honor and love each other, summoned them both, 
with many companions, to Marbarg in 1529. It was the 
one opportunity for uniting Swiss and German Protestant- 
ism; and in what spirit the opportunity was met these 
words will show better than any description. It should be 
remembered, in justice to both parties, that the quotations 
here given are from Zwingli’s account of the event. 

al protest,” said Luther, when the discussion began, 
“that I differ from my adversaries with regard to the doc- 
trine of the Lord’s Supper, and that I always shall differ. 
Christ has said, ‘This is my body,’—Let them show me that 
a body is not a body.” “But,” interposed Zwingli, “ the 
soul is fed with the spirit, not with the flesh.” Luther. 
“Tt is with the mouth that we eat the body; the soul does 
not eat it.” Zwingli. ‘“Christ’s body is then a corporal 
nourishment, not a spiritual.” Luther. ‘You are cap- 
tious.” Zwingli. “Not so, but you utter contradictory 
things.” Luther. “If God should present me wild apples, 
I should eat them spiritually! In the Eucharist, the mouth 
receives the body of Christ, and the soul believes in his 
words.” Zwingli. “I oppose you with this article of our 
faith: ‘He ascended into heaven.’ He cannot be in several 
places at once.” Luther. ‘‘ Were I desirous of reasoning 
thus, I should prove that Christ had a wife, that he had 
black eyes and lived in our good country of Germany. I 
care little about Mathematics.” “As soon as the words of 
consecration are pronounced over the bread, the body is 
there, however wicked be the priest who pronounces them.” 


Zwingli. “You are thus reéstablishing Popery.” Luther. 


“T will not, when Christ’s body is in question, hear speak 


151 


of a particular place. I absolutely will not.” Zwingli. 
“ Must everything then exist precisely as you will it?” 

Little was to be hoped from a conference like this. Per- 
haps the Swiss were stubborn. Certain it is, that Luther 
would listen to no overtures, save that his opponents should 
forsake their ground and stand on his. When at last no fur- 
ther argument remained, he siezed the velvet cover from the 
table on which he had written with chalk “hoc est corpus 
meum,”? and held it before his adversaries’ face, saying ; 
“See! this is our text. You have not yet driven us from 
it, and we care for no other proofs.”® As they were about 
to separate, the Landgrave begged them at least to part fra- 
‘ ternally, and Zwingli, bursting into tears, offered Luther his 
hand; but Luther turned angrily away, saying ; “ Yours is a 
r different spirit from ours.” Afterwards he added; “ You do 


not belong to the union of the Christian Church, we cannot 


~~ 


acknowledge you as brethren.”* 

In spite of this however, the Landgrave, aided by the 
readiness of the Swiss to accept any terms of harmony 
which did not falsify their own belief, succeeded in prevent- 
ing immediate rupture and in establishing a temporary agree- 
~ ment between the two parties. At his solicitation, Luther 
finally consented to draw up fifteen articles of faith in terms 
common to both sides, in which the article on the Lord’s 
Supper was skilfully made to say both that the “very body 


7 and blood of Christ” were in the emblems, and that they 


might be spiritually eaten ; so making it possible for both 


parties to sign the paper.’ 


‘ 5 
CS 
* 


1D’Aub. rv: pp.80-100. 2 This is my body. 3Do. p. 98. 4*Do. pp. 101, 


102. ®D’Aub. rv: 105; Hase, p. 380. 


152 


No real union however, was effected ; as the signatures of 
the two opponents upon the same paper were of less 
account than the conviction left in their minds of the wide 
distance in spirit and in belief that actually separated them. 
The Swiss theologians, with their followers, although not 
exactly accepting Zwingli’s theory of the Eucharist as a 
mere sign of commemoration and fellowship, have yet 
always been content to affirm that the communicant par- 
takes of Christ in a purely spiritual sense; while the Luth- 
eran Church, in insisting that Christ’s body, though not 
actually converted into the bread of the Eucharist, is yet 
“in, under, or with ” the bread, still holds a belief hardly 
distinguishable from the Roman doctrine of Transubstantia- 
tion. 

Zwingli lived but little while after this dispute. In a 
battle near Zurich, in 1531, between the Protestants and the 
five Catholic Cantons, he was left dead upon the field ; and, 
the career of this most interesting of the Reformers was 
thus brought to an abrupt close.t. Although he had not lived 
long enough to determine the direction of Swiss Protestant- 
ism, yet his connection with it lent it an element of intel- 
lectual freedom which it never wholly lost, and which was 
just enough to save the whole movement from the charge 
of narrow dogmatism. After his death the Swiss Reforma- 
tion took a new form. | 

In 1541, John Calvin, a French theologian who had been 
driven from Paris for his heresies, was called to Geneva to 
take direction of a combined social and religious reform 
which was already in progress there, but which others had 


1 Hase, 388. 


153 


‘a 


failed to control. Once before, in 1536, Calvin had been in 

Geneva for a similar purpose; but his severity was so great, 

that he had been driven from the place. Now he returned 

armed with full powers, and proceeded at once to turn the 

little republic into a theocracy with himself as its supreme 

head. Stern and austere by temperament, averse to 

pleasure himself, and seeing in the harmless gaiety of others 

the tokens of man’s absolute depravity, he succeeded in 

establishing in Geneva the most rigid moral despotism to 
which any community in modern, or, perhaps, in ancient 
times, ever submitted. Through a College of Pastors and 
Consistorial Court of Discipline, he sought to bring even the 
most private life of -the citizens directly under theocratic 
rule. He forbade all amusements, dances and noisy games 

cas “ unworthy of the gravity of a christian.” Even ordi- 
nary conversation is said to have been subjected to censor- 
ship. He required every person to abjure the Catholic 
faith. He established a system of domiciliary visits by 
which once a year the faith and manners of every inhabitant 
were discovered, and the ignorant or perverse separated 
from the company of the righteous." 

_ This same inflexible spirit, and the same austere and 
uncompromising temper, Calvin carried with him into his 
theology, where they gained for him even greater power. 

Indeed, these proved to be precisely the traits of mind 
‘suited to times of theological transition when new doctrines 
were needed, and when great superiority of nature or fine- 


ness of soul was of less account than strong conv 
“ Galvin was one of those absolute men,’ 


iction ee 


a relentless will. 


~ 1Comp. Darras, Iv: 128; Chamb. Encyc. 


154 


says one of his recent critics, ‘‘ cast complete in one mould, 
who is taken in wholly at a single glance; one’ letter, one 
action suffices for a judgment of him. There were no folds 
in that inflexible soul, which never knew doubt or hesita- 
tion. % . "g Truth is completely involved in 
nice distinctness. Now, the man who would exert a power- 
ful influence on the world must not regard nice distinctions ; 
he must believe that he alone is wholly right, and that they 
who differ from him are wholly wrong.”’? 

This single trait of seeing his own thought so clearly 
that he could see no truth beside, Calvin © possessed in 
preéminent degree; and he succeeded, as the world knows, 
in stamping it almost ineffaceably upon Protestant theology. 
In his “ Institutes of the Christian Religion,” written in 1535, 
when he was twenty-six years old, he laid out the whole 
ground of Christian theology, with a minuteness of detail, 
a clearness and precision of statement, and a calm assump- 
tion of divine knowledge, which left nothing further to be 
said, and which reduced Protestantism at once to a finished 
dogmatic system. If the divine councils can be read 
by the human mind, and communicated to human intelli- 
gence, I know of no better enunciation of them than Cal- 
vin’s Institutes. | 

It would be quite superfluous to define Calvinism to a 
New England audience. It is enough to say, that Calvin, 
like Luther, turned to the Augustinian doctrines for his 
interpretation of Christianity; but went as far beyond 
Luther, in the paths of Predestination and Irresistible 


Grace, as Luther had gone beyond Romanism.2. To confirm 


1Renan’s Studies of Relig. Hist. and Criticism, p. 286. %D’Aubig. 
Lv 125: 


155 


this statement, and show how the Calvinistic system strikes 
_ the Catholic mind, I will add this quotation from the Catho- 
lie historian, Darras. “The predominant characteristic of 
Oalvin’s system is the doctrine of absolute predestination, 
-earried out with a fanatical rigor even to absurd conse- 
quences. According to Calvin, God, the primordial author 
of good and evil, has from alleternity cast off a portion of his 
creatures, and doomed them to eternal punishment, in order 
to show his justice in them. God caused the first man 
to fall by sin, and involved the whole of Adam’s posterity 
in the revolt. The divine will incites to the commission 
‘of crime those whom it has predestined to eternal loss. 
’ Free-will is no more. The tyranny of a God who punishes 
sins of which he is the final author, did not terrify Calvin. 
He openly professed his belief. ‘Among men,’ said he, 
 ésome are created for eternal life, others for eternal death.’ 
Man is saved, just as he is lost, in spite of himself. There 
is no more merit in being a saint than in being a repro- 
bate.”! Romanism finds little to recognize, it seems, and 
less to admire, in this reproduction of its own Augustinian 
faith. 

Tn regard to the important point of controversy which, 
before his coming among them, had divided the German 
‘and Swiss reformers, Calvin occupied a middle ground. 


With Luther he agreed that Christ is really, though not 


locally, present in the elements : with Zwingli, he declared 
‘that it is not the flesh of Jesus which the communicant 
“receives, but his substance and power. When Christ says, 


“This 2s my body,” both Calvin and Zwingli understand 


oo 


1~’Aubig. Iv: 125. 


156 


the words to mean, “This signifies ;” yet are the elements 
not symbols only, according to Calvin, but actual instru- 
mentalities through which Christ elevates the believer.’ 

But Calvin’s position brought the two parties no nearer 
together. The mutual distrust was too great for any subtle- 
ties of definition to remove. The Lutherans were deter- 
mined to see in Calvin only a second Zwingli; and suc- 
ceeded so well in identifying the two, that the German 
churches which sympathized with the Swiss doctrines were 
forced, at about the time of Calvin’s death, to organize 
themselves as the German Reformed Church. The Heidel- 
berg Catechism, published in 1563, marks the foundation of 
the new sect; and to this day, the Calvinistie Church in 
Germany claims for itself, as against the Lutheran, the spe- 
cific title of Reformed. 

No account of Calvin, or of the faith which he intro- 
duced, would be complete without some allusion to his deal- 
ings with those whom he chose to consider heretics. 
Assuming for himself, as we have seen, the infallible judg- 
ment which he had denied to the Church and the Pope, he 
was quite consistent in pronouncing all other doctrines 
heresy, and in following them with a persecution as relent- 
less as that with which Romanism had pursued its most dan- 
gerous foes. For some strange reason, the treatment of 


Servetus has always been singled out as an isolated event in 


Calvin’s career, and the one solitary blot upon his fame. 


Nothing could be more erroneous. It was not an isolated 


event, nor would Calvin himself have confessed that it was 


a blot upon his character. It was but one of many acts to 


1 Hase, p. 401; St. Liguori, p. 298; Dorner, 1: 407. 


Pie Tale eld, at Re 


157— 


which the logic of his position carried him, and from which 
no gentleness of spirit, or respect for moral heroism, or 


appreciation of the truth that is above all human surmises, 


caused him to shrink. Oalvin made no concealment of his 
views concerning the treatment of heretics. He wrote to 
the Regent of England during the minority of Edward VL, 
“As I understand, Sire, you have two sorts of insurgents 
against the King and the State of the realm; . . 
a i The whole body of them richly deserve to 
be suppressed by the sword which is intrusted to you, seeing 
that they defy not only the King, but God, who has seated 
him on his royal throne, and has commissioned you to pro- 


»l He wrote also con- 


tect his people as well as his majesty. 
cerning some unknown offender, “ Could I have had my 
way, I could have gladly seen him rot in a ditch, and his 
coming delighted me as much as if he had cleft my heart 
with a dagger. : x . : Had he not got 
away so quickly, it would not have been my fault if he had 
escaped the flames.”? When we add to these words the 
title of one of his works, “A defence of the Orthodox faith, 
a: * i in which it is proved that heretics 
may rightfully be coerced by the sword,’® we are quite pre- 
pared for the treatment which all who ventured to oppose 
h is social or religious doctrines were wont to receive at his 
hands. Among these, the best known are Bolsec, who dif- 
fered from Calvin on the question of predestination and 
free-will, and was therefore banished from Geneva; Cas- 
lio, a learned scholar, whom Calvin at first warmly be- 


nded, but afterward, because of certain views concerning 


Renan’s Studies, p. 290. 2Do. p. 291. % Do. p. 291. 
| 21 


158 


the authenticity of Scripture books, not only drove into — 
exile and poverty, but charged with stealing the sticks 
which he was obliged to gather for his support ;+ Gruet, © 
who publicly attacked the consistory, and was tortured and — 
beheaded; Gentilis, who “barely escaped the scaffold for a 
time by retracting his opinions” concerning the Trinity? 

The case of Servetus, therefore, was but one among 
many ; a little more bitter and relentless than the rest, but — 


springing from the same motives and the result of the same — 


principles. Michael Servetus was a Spanish theologian and 
philosopher of unusual scientific attainments, and with a 
passionate love of religious study which led him to welcome — 
the Reformation as an opportunity for cleansing Christianity _ 
of all its corruptions, and restoring its primitive doc-— 
trines. As he reckoned among the corruptions of Chris-_ 
tianity, however, the personality of the Holy Spirit, the 
Trinity, and Infant Baptism, he found himself at once an- 
outcast, both from the Catholic Church and from the ranks ‘ 
of the Reformers, and an especial object of enmity to Cal- 
vin, whose theology Servetus allowed himself to criticise, 
freely. Against such a heretic, Calvin believed that no- 
measures were too severe, or too dishonorable. Learning 
that Servetus, in 1553, was in retirement in Vienne, under 
an assumed name, he stooped to the device of warning the 
Catholic authorities against his heresies, and forwarding con- 
fidential letters which Servetus had written him, to serve as. 
evidence to convict him before a Catholic tribunal. Serve 


tus was arrested and confronted by the proof of his guilt; 


1Chamb. Encyc., Calvin. Lecky’s Rationalism, m: 53-56. 2 Renan’s. 
Stud. p. 291. a 


Tee 


= 


= aS PS Lea ee y Fee Se pe SPO eee: 


159 


and had he not escaped from prison, Calvin would have had 
the delight of using the fires of the Inquisition to burn his 
own heretics. He escaped however, though to meet no 
kinder fate, and fled to Switzerland, with the purpose of 
going to Italy. At Geneva he fell into the hands of Calvin 
himself, who was not slow in availing himself of the oppor- 
tunity to crush out the hated heresy. Before Servetus came 
to Geneva, Calvin wrote to Farel, “Should he come and my 
authority avail, I will not suffer him to go away alive.”? 


He brought him at once to trial on three charges: denial of 


the Trinity; denial of the Divinity of Christ ; Pantheism. 


His nominal accuser was Calvin’s private secretary, Nicolas 


de la Fontaine; and during the progress of the trial, Calvin 


wrote again to Farel, “I hope that the punishment will be 


death.”? His wish was fulfilled, and Servetus was sentenced 
to be burned. Never, in the annals of the Inquisition, 
was the death of a heretic surrounded by more horror, or 
attended by less magnanimity or more vindictiveness on 
the part of the executioners. The pile was erected on 
an eminence outside the city. Servetus was bound to 
the stake by an iron chain with a heavy cord around 
his neck, the fagots were of green oak branches with 
the leaves still on. So heart-rending were his cries, as 
the slow fires crept around him, that the bystanders ran 
for dry wood to cast upon the flames; and after a half 
hour of frightful agony, he expired When Huss, upon 
being tied to the stake, cried out, “ Jesus Christ, Son of 


the living God, have mercy on me,” a Roman Catholic 


1 Revue d. deux Mondes, pp. 819-26. 7” Revue, Pp. 831, note. ® Rev. p. 
834. *Rey. p. 843; Darras, Iv: 128; St. Liguori, p. 302; Hase, p. 433. 


160 


historian, in recording the event, added, “ We should not — 
forget that the devil has martyrs and infuses into them a 
false constancy.”* When Servetus, in being led to the 
stake, fell upon his knees in prayer, erying “O, God! O, 
God!” Farel shouted to the crowd who looked on; ‘See 
what power Satan has when he takes possession of a man. 
This man is learned, but he is now possessed by the devil.”? 
And when Servetus, even at the stake, cried “ Jesus Christ, 
Son of the Eternal God,” and would not say ‘ eternal Son_ 
of God,’ Calvin was afterwards moved to write, ‘‘ When 
under the hands of the executioner he refused to call Jesus — 
Christ the eternal son of God, who will say that that was a — 
martyr’s death ?”® | 
From these revolting scenes, and this new and baser birth — 
of papal infallibility, it is pleasant to turn to another moyve-— 
ment of the young faith in another land. ; ) 
The Reformation in England took upon itself, as might | 
be expected, a wholly distinctive character. It was lessa — 
sudden outburst of new-born religious feeling, or a protest — 
against papal tyranny or corruption, than the gradnal — 
loosening of ties under which the nation had long been — 
chafing, and the final renunciation of a foreign supremacy — 
which had long been wearisome. It was an affair of State — 
quite as‘much as of Church, and of administration rather | 
than of theology. At first, indeed, England showed but lit-— 
tle interest in the German controversies, and little taste for 7 
them. Henry VIII. made himself conspicuous as defender | 
of the old faith; and in his new pride of authorship and ‘ 
disgust at the rude blows which Luther at first dealt him, 4 


St. Liguori, p. 254. ?Rev. p. 848. 8 Rev. p. 844. 


Loa 


seemed little inclined to give the new views a_ hearing. 
After bringing upon himself, the papal ban however, 
through his marriage with Anne Boleyn, his feelings 
changed, and in 1534, a decree of Parliament was easily 
passed abrogating the papal supremacy in England, and 
constituting the king “the only supreme head of the 
Church.”* This simple act, however, established neither 
Protestantism nor the Reformation. A period of strange 
confusion followed, in which the people, too ignorant to 
comprehend the new theological ideas let loose upon them, 
fluctuated violently between the two faiths, in which the 
King himself, dreading the new freedom he had sanctioned, 
tried still to cling to “the pure Catholic faith,’ and in 
which followers of Luther and followers of the Pope were 
frequently executed on the same gibbet.? The reign of 
Mary, fortunately short, brought the chief leader of the 
reformers, Oranmer, with many humbler adherents, to the 
stake (1556); nor even in the reign of Elizabeth was it possi- 
ble to organize the National Church, but by mingling in 
the new formularies, Catholic ceremonial with Protestant 
theology. In 1571, the forty-two Articles of Faith first 
proposed by Cranmer, afterwards reduced to thirty-nine, 


were finally sanctioned by Parliament, and subscriptions to 


een 


them made obligatory for all the clergy.’ 

| The Church of England was an undisguised compromise 
between conflicting parties; or rather an undisguised 
~ endeavor to adjust new beliefs to the established and venera- 
ted forms to which the nation as a whole was so strongly 
pet 

' 1Hume’s Hist. 1v: 89. 2Hume, rv: 94,97; Hase, p. 422. 8 Hagen- 
bach; Hist. of Doc. 1: 167. 


162 


attached. In its Book of Common Prayer it embodied 
reminiscences of the Church from which it sprang, and con- 
tinued Catholic; in its Articles of Faith, it gave voice to the 
new belief and became Protestant. As compared with 
other Protestant churches, the Church of England has 
always been less doctrinal than ecclesiastical ; its theology 
being overshadowed by its ceremonial. Indeed, its theology 
isa little hard to fix. Judged by the test which commonly 
distinguishes Lutheran from Calvinistic, if it be worth while 
ever to apply that local test to churches of other lands, the 
Thirty-nine Articles are unquestionably of, the latter type. 
Both the Article of the Lord’s Supper, and the Communion 
Service itself, embody Calvin’s rather than Luther’s concep- 
tion of the presence of Christ in the elements. “The Body 


y] 


of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper,” says 


Article XX VIIL, “only after a heavenly and spiritual man- 
ner.” “Take and eat this,” says the Communion service, 
“in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on 
him in thy heart by faith.’ And again, “Thou dost vouch- 
safe to feed us with the spiritual food of the most precious 
Body and Blood of thy Son.” To this evidence is to be 
added the fact that as late as 1578, Calvin’s Catechism was 
in use at the University of Cambridge Yet in 177A, it 
seemed to be still in doubt within the Church itself 
whether its faith was Calvinistic or not; as in that year a 
work by Toplady appeared, entitled “ Historic proof of 
Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England,” together 
with a reply by Archbishop Danbury and by Dean Kepling, 
styled “The Articles of the Church of England proved to 


1Hagenbach, m1: 183. 


iT - 2 oe 


163 


be not Calvinistic.” At the beginning of this century, the 
doubt still continued; as Bishop Tomline published in 1811, 
a “Refutation of Calvinism,” while in 1544, Dr. Laurence, 
Professor at Oxford, gave in a Bampton lecture, “An 
Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of Eng- 
land improperly considered Calvinistic.”* 

I bring forward these facts, not by way of criticism, but 
simply to illustrate what I suppose to be the real character 
of the English Church. The members of the English 
Church are at variance as to its doctrines, for the simple 
reason that its doctrines have been purposely lett undefined. 
Doctrine is not the distinctive feature of the Church. 
To put this point more clearly, and show that it is not a 
fanciful theory of my own, let me quote the language of a 
very able Episcopal writer, who in an article upon the last 

General Convention of the American Episcopal Church, 
wrote as follows: “Dogmatic theology is a subordinate 
interest in the constitution of the Episcopal Church, whilst 
among all other churches it is the controlling interest.” 
“The dominant idea, next to the purpose of religious 
reform, was institutional and historical, not dogmatic.” 

Certainly, facts have not been wanting to prove that this 
is the true theory of the character of English Episcopacy. 

Not only does the list of titles which I have just quoted 
indicate this, but it can safely be said that, were the writings 
of the principal English theologians of the last three centu- 
ries to be compared, they would present as wide a range of 
theological opinion, and as vast a diversity of dogmatic 


belief, as we have already found in the Church Fathers, the 


1Hagen. mu: 184. ? Old and New, Vol. 1v: 460. 


164 


Justins and Clements and Tertullians, the Cyprians, 
Ireneeuses and Origens, of the first three centuries of the 
Christian Church. Still more significant have been certain 
judgments of the Church itself within the last’ few years. 
As the Roman Church speaks through its Councils, so the 
English Church speaks through the Queen’s Privy Council. 
Twice within the present generation, the Privy Council has 
had to speak upon questions of the gravest dogmatic inter- 
est, brought up for final decision from the ecclesiastical 
courts below. 

In 1850 or 1851, the case of the Rev. Cornelius Gorham 
was brought before it, whom the Bishop of Exeter had 
refused to institute to a vicarage, on the ground that he 
denied that spiritual regeneration is given or conferred in 
the Sacrament of Baptism, notwithstanding the Catechism 
teaches that doctrine. The Court, without passing upon 
the correctness of Mr. Gorham’s views, decided that those 
views did not contradict the articles, and had in fact been 
held without censure by many eminent prelates and 
divines." In other words, the sacramental efficacy of bap- 
tism, an important doctrine of the Lutheran as well as the 
Catholic Church, is left an open question by the Church of 
England. 

In 1864, the still more noted case of the “ Essays and 
Reviews” was brought before the Privy Council, in which 
two writers holding positions in the Church, were charged 
with heretical opinions concerning the Inspiration of the 


Scriptures, Eternal Punishment, and the “ Merits of Christ.” 


1Chamb. Encye. Art. Gorham. 


165 


The Court decided that although these writers held rational- 
istic views on these points, from which the court itself dis- 
sented, yet the language of the Articles was not so explicit, 
nor the opinions of Church theologians so uniform, on 
either of three points, that the doctrines in question could 
be pronounced heretical. Every charge against these 
writers was therefore dismissed. In other words, the 
special Inspiration of the Scriptures, Eternal Punishment, 
and the Imputation of the “Merits of Christ,” are open 
questions in the English Church." “As the Gorham judg- 
ment,” said Dean Stanley at the time, ‘established the legal 
_ position of the Puritan or Evangelical party in the Church 
of England, so the present judgment establishes the legal 
position of those who have always claimed the right of free 
inquiry, and latitude of opinion.”? 

The great diversity of opinion sheltered by the English 
Church is a fact almost universally recognized, and viewed 
_ with sorrow or pride according to the position of the indi- 
vidual. Said a writer in the London Times, not long ago; 
“This Church possesses every attribute, every advantage, 
and every disadvantage, of a compromise. Her articles and 
authorized formularies are so drawn as to admit within her 
_ pale, persons differing as widely as it is possible for the pro- 
fessors of Christian religion to differ from each other. 
Unity was neither sought nor obtained, but comprehension 
was aimed at and accomplished.”? Lord Chatham said that 
‘in his time, “the English Church had Oalvinistic Articles, 


. ° . . ° = 7 294 ry : 
a Papistic Service, and an Arminian Clergy. ‘The 


1 Edin. Review. July 1864.—Article by Dean Stanley on ‘‘ The Three 
Pastorals.” 2Same Article, p. 140. * Quoted by Dollinger; Church and 
Churches, p. 157. 4 Dollinger’s Ch. and Churches, p. 169. 

“o Ns 


166 


other Protestant Churches,” says Déllinger, “possess, in 
Symbolic Books, at least the possibility of unity of doc- 
trine; but the English Church has the germ of discord and 
ecclesiastical dissolution in its normal condition, and in its 
confession of faith. It is a collection of heterogeneons theo- 
logical propositions, tied together by the Act of Uniformity, 
but which in a logical mind cannot exist by the side of one 
another.”! Merle D’Aubigné, the Swiss historian of the 
Reformation, takes a very gloomy view of this peculiarity of 
English Protestantism, and says reproachfully, in reference 
to the Essays and Reviews Trial, “We venture to ask 
whether this judgment be not subversive of the fundamental 
principles of the Anglican Church?”? The American writer 
whose words I have already quoted, enumerates “seven dis- 
tinct types of doctrine, or tendencies observable within the 
Church,” and adds this fine conception of the “true law of 
the being of the Episcopal Church.” “The Church is 
broader and better than the men who control it. It cannot, 
without the destruction of its fundamental law, be made the 
“expression or embodiment of a party. It covers essential 
Christianity. It knows no theories of Christianity. It 
seeks to give utterance to the needs of the universal heart, 
to be the communion and fellowship of all faithful men, 
allowing all freedom, within the limits of the faith, for the 
existence, the culture, the development of Christian think- 
ing and feeling and living.”?® 

This is admirable language; yet it is idle to deny that the 
lofty ideal which it suggests has hardly yet been realized in 
the actual English Church of any age. Indeed, this very 


1Dollinger, p. 106. 2? Preface, 1v. #® Old and New, Iv: 463, 469. 


———=. .- =~ 


167 


token of its excellence, this superb tolerance of conflicting 
_ views, which is here claimed as the characteristic of Episco- 

pacy, is to-day vexing the souls and stirring the deep indig- 
nation of hosts of its prominent members. Nor does it 
_ seem clear to one who looks from the outside, why, if the 
_ Articles are to be so generously construed as to admit all 
possible interpretations of them, it would not be better to 
substitute for them the Gospels and Epistles themselves, 
_ which have the great advantage of being neither Lutheran 
nor Calvinistic, but eminently Christian. If the Scriptures 
_ contain these so-called Christian doctrines of Trinity, Atone- 
ment and Election, then to confess the Scriptures is to con- 
fess them: if the Scriptures do not contain them, why 
should Christians confess them ? 
_ For one, however, I am willing to judge the Episcopal 
7 Church by the estimate placed upon it by the nobler minds 
of its communion, and to look forward, with its friends, to 
the time when it shall justify their generous hopes, and hold 
within its borders, with no jealous scrutiny or reproachful 
glance, the honest strivers after truth of every type and 
faith. Iam willing to give it full credit for even having 
dreamed of embracing many beliefs in one ecclesiastical 
communion. ay or 
q If that hour shall ever come, if either English Episco- 
pacy, or any other Christian body, shall some time consent 
to leave entirely to Romanism the fixing of dogmatic Ortho- 
re oxy, and shall content itself with offering to its followers a 
Eb ospitable religious home, in whose sacred quiet, far above 
the noises and envies of the sects, they may all pursue, 
under highest influences, and by paths of their own, the 


divine truth which invites their search, mind encountering | 
mind in friendly difference, then, as it seems to me, the ideal 
Protestant Church will be formed. For it will be a Sie 


based not on belief, but on spiritual life. , aad a 


=] 
=y 


MpeTURE IX. 


APRIL 12, 1874. 


UNITARIAN HERESIES. 


_ Tue leading sects of the Reformers, as we have seen, 

while renouncing the authority of the Church, and the 
supremacy of the Pope, chose to retain many of the Church 
doctrines. Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans, differing 
widely on lesser points, agreed in preserving the decrees of 
ancient Councils concerning the Trinity, Incarnation, Origi- 
nal Sin, with the whole dogmatic system of which these are 
a part. 

This was a purely arbitrary decision, of course. When 
‘the Church was cast off, all its Councils and Confessions 
went with it as parts of itself; and if any dogmas were 
retained, it could only be on the ground of individual 
preference. The Protestant sects had a perfect right, if 


they chose, to reject Papal Supremacy, and retain the 
as both these doctrines could claim 


Trinity; but, inasmuch 
while one had no more Seriptur- 


precisely the same sanction, 


al basis than the other, this 
spiritual freedom which Protest- 


t of reason against 


discrimination eould be made 


only as an exercise of the 
autism had secured. It was an ac 
authority. In other words, Protestantism being in its very 


170 


essence rationalism, authority in matters of doctrine disap- 
peared with the Reformation, and individual reformers or — 
churches were at liberty to accept or reject any of the past 
beliefs of Christendom at will. In its nobler moods, Prot- 
estantism was quite ready to take this lofty ground, and had 
many fine things to say about the right of private interpre- 
tation and the spiritual equality of all Christian believers. 
When the time came for forming its creed, however, it for- 
got all this, accepted its fundamental dogmas upon the 
direct authority of the early Councils of the Church, and 
announced its belief in advance for all its followers. 

We cannot be surprised, however, if there were some 
among the early reformers to whom the first three Councils 
seemed no more binding than the last; and who were 
inclined to exercise freely the new right of private judgment. 
If the followers of Luther and Calvin discarded Trent, it 
was entirely natural, and should have excited neither sur- 
prise nor resentment, that others should, by the same right, 
discard Nice. As a simple matter of fact, such Protestants 
there were from the very beginning ; and the Reformation 
had no sooner gained a solid footing, than every one of the 
dogmas which had been established at such pains in the 
third and fourth centuries, found itself openly challenged, 
and forced to prove its right to exist. As the doctrines of 
the Trinity still, as of old, constituted the chief dividing line 
between these two schools, and as I have already grouped 
the one under the head of Trinitarian Heresies, I propose to 
class the others to-night under the general name of Unita- 
rian Heresies, and to trace the descent of Unitarianism 
from the time of the Reformation. 


171 


Unitarianism accompanied Protestantism, as it had accom- 
panied early Christianity, from its cradle. The last three 
centuries have been as full of this heresy as were the first 
three. Before Luther’s death, Unitarianism had appeared 
in Italy, in Hungary, in Poland, in Spain, in Germany, in 
England. We find the Trinity on the defensive in every 
Protestant confession. It received special notice and vindi- 
cation in the first theological statement of the NReformation, 
Melanchthon’s ‘“Loci-Communes.” The Augsburg Con- 
fession, in its first article, condemns the “modern Samosatans,” 
who “deny the personality of the Word and the Spirit.”* 
Calvin devotes one of the longest chapters of his “ Insti- 
tutes,” consisting of twenty-nine sections, to the “ Unity of 
the Divine Essence in three Persons, taught in Scripture 
from the foundation of the world.”? The opponents of this 
doctrine he styles “ Arians,” “Sabellians,” “ Prattlers ;” and 
declares that “Satan has provoked fierce disputes concern- 
ing the divine essence of the Son and the Spirit,” and is 
“trying in the present day to kindle new flame out of the 
old embers.” In 1533, Melanchthon wrote to a friend, 
BY ou know that in reference to the Trinity, ] have always 
feared that these things would again break out. Good God! 
what disturbances will be raised in the next age, whether 
the Logos and the Holy Spirit are Hypostases (persons.) I 
abide by those words of Holy Writ, which direct to pray to 
Christ, and attribute to him divine honors: but I do not feel 


~ compelled to examine more accurately the assertions respect- 


995 


ing Hypostases. 


_ Many open opponents of the Trinity are mentioned by 


ici.’ : 65 2—: xu. *Sec. 
1“ Samosateni neoterici.”—Nean. Dogmas, I: 650. 21: xu s 


21, oo, one * Sec. 23. 5 Neander’s Dogmas, I: 650. 


172 


the historians of this period, besides the few who are famil- 
larly known. Of those whose names alone can be given, 
were John Campanus of Wittenberg, who, after a careful 
study of the opinions of the Fathers concerning the Trinity, 
taught that the Son was born before the creation, but was a 
subordinate hypostasis to the Father, and that the Holy 
Spirit was not a person, but simply the divine Essence; 
Wicel, who also declared the ancient Church doctrine anti- 
Trinitarian; Valentine Gentilis, whose doctrine was that 
there were three “divine essences,” two being subordinate 
to the third, and who preached his heresy in Switzerland, 
Savoy, France and Poland ;! Gonesius and Farnovius, who 
carried Anti-Trinitarianism into Poland; Louis Hetzer, who 
“denied every distinction in the Trinity;”? Claudius of 
Savoy, who taught that Christ was called God, ‘inasmuch 
as he had received the fulness of the divine Spirit beyond 


all other beings ;” and George Blandrata, an Italian physi- 


cian, who established Unitarianism in Transylvania, in 1556, | 


and who is charged by a Catholic historian with having 
made Arianism “the most numerous sect in Transylvania.’”? 

The fate of these reformers testifies anew to a_ fact, 
which has already been twice noticed, the reluctance of the 
leading heretics of the Reformation to grant to others the 
freedom of opinion which they claimed for themselves. All 
of these were persecuted ; two, Gentilis and Hetzer, were 
beheaded. Indeed, it does not seem to have occurred to the 
early Protestants that true religion could possibly be propa- 


gated except by violence. They not only did not shrink 


_—— ——_ 


11566. 71529. %St. Liguori, Hist. of Heresies, pp. 353, 354; Nean- 
der’s Dogmas, 11: 646-648; Mosheim’s Institutes, mr: 254. 


a 


173 


from taking the lives of heretics, they encouraged and 
warmly applauded both torture and death. Luther, Calvin, 
Melanchthon, Beza, Knox, with all their leading followers, 
claimed the weapons of persecution as essential to the safety 
of the Christian Church; while Jurien, whom Lecky calls 
- “the most eminent French minister in Holland,’ went so 
far as to pronounce persecution “the way which Providence 
has employed from the first for establishing true religion.”* 
“The only two exceptions to this spirit among the leaders of 
the Reformation,” adds Lecky, ‘seem to have been Zwingli 
and Socinus,? the two rationalists of early Protestantism.”* 
Both these men, to the great indignation of their fellow- 
reformers, took open ground against the persecution of 
religious opponents, this being counted against Socinus as a 
7 greater heresy, if possible, than his Unitarianism. Jurien 
speaks of the idea of universal toleration as “that Socinian 
| dogma, the most dangerous of all held by the Socinian sect, 


since it tends to ruin Christianity and establish the indiffer- 


ence of religions.” * 


- Judged simply from the general character of his theology, 
-Zwingli certainly deserves the title of rationalist; inas- 
much as he counted original sin a “ disease,” carrying with 
it no guilt, considered. baptism as no more essential to 
eternal life than circumcision, regarded the Lord’s Supper a 
F simple commemoration of Christ’s death, and ventured the 
a startling opinion, in a letter to Francis L., that he would 
probably have the Joy, in heaven, of meeting, “not only 
the first and second Adam, Abel, Peter, and Paul, but also 


eee 


: 4 ‘ 
lLecky’s Rationalism, 1: 52, note. %m: Bl. *1: 369. Lecky, 


52.—note. 
23 


174 


Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, Aristides, Numa, Cato, and the 
Scipios.”? As he did not happen, however, to come to any 
break with the Trinity, I must pass him by to-night, and 
take up another who, both for his melancholy fate, and for 
the singular interest and importance of his religious 
thought, deserves the first place among Anti-Trinitarian 
reformers; Michael Servetus. As his story is less familiar 
than it should be, I shall make no apology for dwelling 
upon it at some length. 

Michael Servetus was born in Villanueva, Arragon, in 
1509, the year of Calvin’s birth, and first heard of the 
new religious doctrines when studying law at Toulouse. 
Leaving his profession at once, he sought out the reformers, 
first at Basle, where he met A’colampadius, then at Stras- 
burg, where he found Bucer and Capito, then at Paris, 
‘where he met Calvin. To his surprise, however, his ardent 
reception of the new ideas, and eagerness to follow them to 
their last conclusions, met with a cold response from these 
theologians; while his passionate search into the great 
truths of Christianity thus newly opened, seemed to them 
but idle and restless curiosity. Even Zwingli denounced 
him as “ That wicked and cursed Spaniard ;” while Calvin 
hastened to speak of him as that “frantic” Servetus, ‘ who 
has thrown all things into confusion.”® 


This hostility is easily explained. Servetus was the only 


1Gieseler’s Church History, 1v; 403, n., 406, n.; St. Liguori, p. 293. 
2 My chief authority for this account of Servetus is an article in the 


Revue des deux Mondes, February and March, 1848, by Emile Saisset. 
The writer had in his hands, while writing, the copy of Servetus’s chief 
work, which had been used by his accusers in the trial, and which bore 
marks of the flames from which it had been snatched. 


SI NStaleex nie 2. 


ee 


175 


one among these reformers who entered upon the Protestant 
movement, not as a theologian, but as a philosopher; in the 
interest, not of the Church, but of philosophic and religious 
thought. A reformation which rested in the formation of 
new sects, and the recoining of old doctrines, seemed to him 
to stop half way, and he exasperated his companions by 
planning “a rejuvenated Christianity, reconstructed from 
base to summit, the Christianity of the future, which he 
believed was also the Christianity of the past.”* That he 
was of too versatile or erratic a genius to be able himself 
to found this Christianity of the future, or to leave behind 
any permanent results, the event seems to have proved. 
His philosophy died with him}; yet his religious speculations 
are of the highest interest, his glimpses of coming truths 
were clear and often very startling, he won high reputation 
‘in medicine, in law, in theology, in mathematics and in 
Oriental languages, while the ardent spirit of discovery and. 
insatiate thirst for truth, which he carried into each pursuit 
in turn, lent a charm to his career which belonged to that 
of none of his more noted contemporaries. 

The character of his genius, and the extent of his 
researches, cannot be better illustrated than by the contribu- 
tion which he made to the great discovery of the following 
century, the circulation of the blood. In this he anticipated 
‘Harvey by more than fifty years ; and probably no scientific 
discovery was ever reached by a more remarkable method. 
Servetus came upon it in the midst of his theological 
enquiries. In reading the Old Testament he found the 


statement that “the soul is in the blood; that the soul @ 


1 Revue, p. 591. 


176 

the blood.”! “Then,” said Servetus, “to know how the 
soul is formed, I must know how blood is formed, to know 
how blood is formed, I must know bow it flows.” “And 
thus,” according to the statement of Flourens, “in his ‘Res- 
toration of Christianity,’ he is led to the formation of the 
soul; from the formation of the soul to the formation of 
blood, and from the formation of blood to pulmonary cireu- 
lation.’’? 

Such a spirit as this found, of course, a most inviting and 
legitimate field for its enquiries in early Christian thought, 
and made many discoveries there which had quite escaped 
the notice of his less bold and inquisitive fellow-reformers. 
While they went back to Augustine for a practical system of 
human -salvation, Servetus went back beyond Augustine, 
and beyond Athanasius, and discovered there a sublime truth 
which the later dogmas of the Church, as’ he thought, had 
forgotten and overlaid. He found asserted there, in Jewish 
and Christian Scripture, and in every religious philosophy 
of the past, the absolute unity of God. This truth he 
seized as the kernel of all philosophy and all religion; 
and devoted his life, with pathetic zeal, to restoring it to its 
lost supremacy. 

The leading points of the philosophy which Servetus 
based on this truth, though too subtile and fanciful to secure 
acceptance from our times, are yet worth a passing notice. 
God is absolutely one and indivisible; the essence and life 
of all things. In himself incomprehensible, he perpetually 
reveals himself by his zdeas ; these ideas being not abstrac- 


tions, but substantial and vivifying principles. The sum of 


1Gen. 1x: 4. ?Nouvelle Biographie Generale, 43, Servetus. Also 
Flourens, Jour. des Savants, April, 1854. 


= tS 


oes 


177 


these ideas is the archetypal world, of which the visible 
_ world is only a. shadowy image. Visible things find their 
reality and unity in ideas ; ideas find their reality and unity 
in God. God-is all; allis God The application of these 
principles to Christianity is very striking. These primal 
ideas in their totality, constitute the Word of God. They 
emanate from a primitive type, Christ, who is the type of 
. perfect humanity. The living Jesus, whose historic appear- 
ance, supernatural birth, and resurrection, Servetus admits, 
was this eternal and invisible Word taking visible form. 
Christ is the most perfect manifestation of God, his image, 
his person. Christ 7s God; God that is, visibly entering 
into creation. “In Christ, God and man are truly united in 
one substance, one body, one new man.”? The divinity and 
humanity are not two separate things combined; the 
humanity és the divinity. Christ was a man, filled with the 
divine nature. The Holy Spirit is a divine energy in crea- 
tion, a moral principle in man. Salvation depends not on 
certain speculative views of the Trinity, but on the acknowl- 
- edgment of Christ, in whom alone God reveals himself.’ 

Servetus’s dissent from the Trinity, therefore, is on pe- 
-euliar ground. The doctrine of the Trinity destroys Christ’s 
divinity. Beside tearing the divine essence in three, it tears 
Christ in two. In separating his human nature from his 
“divine, and making the divine alone sinless and infinite, it 
proclaims Jesus not the Son of God; God not really come 
in the flesh “Empty chimeras! vain refinements! Open 


= . ae . - . e 7 
the Gospel; where is the trace of these puerile distinctions 4 


1 Revue, pp. 605-609. 7? Revue, p. 615, notes. 3Neander’s Dogmas, II: 
648; Hagenbach’s Hist. of Doc. 1: 380; Gieseler’s Hist. 1v: 852, note. 
* Revue, p. 613. 


178 


Do you find there two Sons of God; the one perfect, infi- 
nite, impassable; the other finite, imperfect, subject to temp- 
tation and suffermg? No! one Christ alone, one Son of 


God, single and indivisible.” ‘“ Your Trinity is -a product 


of subtilty and madness. The Gospel knows nothing of it. 


The old Fathers, Ignatius, Irenzeus, Tertullian, are strangers 
‘to these vain distinctions. It’is from the school of Greek 
Sophists that you Athanasius, prince of tri-theists, have 
borrowed. it. 3 = * + There is no middle 
ground; either there is in God one substance, one essence, 
one person, or there are three gods. What more absurd 
than this tri-theism! what abyss of contradictions ! " 
i. * Degenerate theism, a thousand times inferior to 
that of Moses, or of the Talmud, inferior even to the the- 
ology of the Koran! Ridiculous divinity, which leads us 


back to Paganism, to the three-headed Cerberus of ancient 


mythology!”? They who assert three individual persons. 


in the Godhead,” were Servetus’s words after hearing his 
sentence, ‘‘ do insinuate that there are three Gods. There 
remains, therefore, both on the mind and understanding, this 
insuperable perplexity and inexplicable confusion, that three 
are one, and one is three.”? 

The unity of the divine essence, as against the very 
dogmas which .in seeming to assert really destroy it, has 
never received a nobler vindication than at the hands of 
Servetus. The idea possessed him wholly; and his bold 
pursuit of it to its ultimate consequences brought him 
upon ground which to the sixteenth century seemed im- 


pious blasphemy, but in which the nineteenth century can 


1Revue, p. 612, ?Revue, p. 607. Scattered passages from the ‘‘ Resto- 
ration of Christianity.” ®Drummond’s Life of Servetus, p. 152. 


‘ 
—_ =. - 


179 


read the anticipation of its own highest thonght. Our apos- 
tles of science, who are braving their little martyrdoms 
to-day, will read with sympathy and pride this almost for- 
gotten incident from the martyrdoms of the past. “Do 
you maintain,” said Calvin to Servetus in his last trial 
at Geneva, “that our souls are shoots from the divine sub- 
stance; that in all being there is one substantial deity ?” 
*“T*> maintain it,’ was the reply. ‘ Wretched man!” 
shouted Calvin, stamping his foot, “is this pavement, 
then, God? Is it God that I trample this moment 
under foot?” ‘ Unquestionably.” Then,” added Calvin 
ironically, “in the devils themselves is God?” “Do 
you doubt it?” replied the unflinching Christian pantheist.* 
But such heroism as this had no charm for the grim dog- 
matists of early Protestantism. Least of all for Calvin, 
every sentiment of whose nature was crossed by this fiery, 
irreverent, unyielding iconoclast. The mind which cares 
more to see clearly than to see far, and is impatient of any 
religious truth that will not yield itself to exact and infallible 
dogma, can tolerate speculative thought only by the exercise 
of sheer condescension and magnanimity ; and magnanimity 
unfortunately was a trait whose meaning, in theological 
‘matters, Calvin did not know. When Servetus published, 
first his “Seven Books on the Errors of the Trinity,” and 
afterwards his more pronounced and noted work on the 
“ Restoration of Christianity,” in which he commented on 
Calvin’s own opinions with daring frankness, his doom, 
so far as Calvin could compass it, was already sealed. 
After failing, as we have already seen, to set in motion 


| against Servetus the machinery of Catholic persecution in 


1 Revue. p. 610. 


180 


Vienne, Calvin secured the still more brilliant triumph of 
kindling in Geneva the flames of a Protestant Inquisition ; 
and dismissing into eternity, in frightful agony, the soul that 
had dared assert the absolute unity of God. After ages 
have sought to relieve Calvin from the responsibility of this 
act; but Calvin himself sought no such escape, nor desired 
it. He did not himself try Servetus nor condemn him ; but 
he brought him to a trial of which the result was fore- 
shadowed from the beginning, and expressed no regret at 
the issue. Not one of the leading reformers grieved over it. 
Melanchthon, Bullinger, Beza and Farel openly approved 
of it. Protestantism was well content with the death of 
the ‘ cursed Spaniard.” 

From Spain we turn to Italy, where, although the Refor- 
mation gained no visible foothold, yet Protestantism found 
itself eagerly welcomed by a little band of scholars who, 
long before Luther’s appearance, had been trained to the 
most free and fearless speculative thought." Nowhere were 
the new ideas carried to greater extremes than by the few 
who received it in Italy.” About the year 1546, a little 
knot of forty,men are said to have formed a secret society in 
Vicenza, in the territory of Venice, for the free discussion 


of the great religious and philosophical questions which 


the Reformation had opened. From what we can learn of , 


their discussions, they seem to have dealt with profounder 
themes than commonly came within the scope of early 
Protestantism, and to have drawn from a larger scholarship ; 
for they not only reached the conclusions that God was the 
one Supreme Being, and that Jesus, though born indeed of a 


1Lecky’s Rationalism, 1: 369. 2 Biographie Generale, 43, Socinus. 


a 


181 


Virgin, was but a man ; they also claimed that the popular 
doctrines of the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the. person- 
ality of the Spirit, J ustification, and the Imputation of 
Christ’s merits, were foreign corruptions, “introduced into 
Christianity by Greek Philosophers.”* 

One of this interesting band of religious enquirers was 
Lelius Socinus, of Siena, (1525-1562), heir of a name 
already eminent in jurisprudence, and destined ‘now, as 
borne by himself and his more noted nephew, to gain equal 
eminence in theology? Lelius is described as “a man of 
rare eloquence, familiar with Biblical languages, and as able 
a critic as in those times it was possible for a man to be pb 
but little is to be told of his career, except that on the dis- 
covery and dispersal of the band of forty, he was forced to 
flee and ‘found his way to France, to England, to Poland, 
and finally to Zurich, where he died at the age of thirty- 
seven. With little of the controversial spirit of Servetus, and 
showing the tastes of the student rather than the mettle of 
the reformer, he never sought to disseminate his views 
beyond the circle of his friends and correspondents, yet left 
upon others the distinct impress of his own free and original 
thought. Among these others was his nephew Faustus Soci- 
nus of Siena,‘ who was the true founder of Socinianism. He 


-too was a refugee when history first mentions him, having 


1Gieseler, Iv: 355; note. 

2 Bayle speaks of one Socinus (1401), a distinguished jurisconsult of 
the fifteenth century, as ‘‘ the most universal man of his age; ” of his 
grandson, the father of Lelius, as *‘ no less illustrious,” being Doctor 
of Jurisprudence at twenty-one, and afterwards professor at Padua and 
Bologna; and of a son of the latter as ‘“‘dying youns with the reputa- 
tion of a learned jurist.” Dictionaire Historique et Critique, p. 2604. 


8 Biog. Generale, Socinus. 4 1539-1604. 
24 


182 


been driven from Italy for his theological opinions before he 
was twenty, and having escaped to France. Although per- 
mitted to return to Italy after his uncle’s death, and remain- 
ing for twelve ycars in the service of the Grand Duke of 
Tuscany, he finally abandoned, of his own accord, the elegant 
ease of court life, and devoted himself to the study and pro- 
pagation of a purer theology. His life, unlike that of his 
uncle, was an active one throughout. On going from Italy 
to Basle, in 1574, for purposes of study, he excited such 
theological hostility there that he was forced to leave in 
1578, and went next to Transylvania, whither Blandrata had 
preceded him, and where he found Unitarianism publicly 
recognized and already firmly established; so firmly, as it 
proved, that it has maintained its position as a flourishing 
church, to the present day. From Transylvania, he went, 
in 1579, to Poland, where his uncle had taught Unitarian- 
ism more than twenty years before, and where the nephew 
now preached and disputed with a vigor which made Socin- 
ianism from that day a great power in the Christian world. 
Protestantism, Socinus taught, must rest on the single basis 
of human reason, casting out whatever contradicts reason, 
and refusing shelter to dogmas which claim acceptance 
solely as mysteries.? His doctrines proved startling, it is 
true, even to his own sect, and caused’ his temporary with- 
drawal from Cracow, at one time even endangering his life ; 
but he remained in Poland, was married there, lost his 
Italian property by confiscation, battled bravely for his doc- 
trines at the Synod of Brest in 1588,.and died in enforced 
retirement in 1604. 


1Faiths of the World, 1: 608. 2Chamb. Encyc. Art. Socinus. 


183 


In his theological position, Socinus, who was far less specu- 
lative and more exactly critical than Servetus, recalls in 
many respects the old and much-condemned heresy of Paul 
‘of Samosata ;! who held, as you may remember, that Christ, 
though pure man by nature, yet received such illumination 
of divine wisdom that he became God by progressive devel- 
opment.2 One of the main points in Socinus’s system, and 
one in which later Unitarianism has hardly followed his 
leadership, was that Christ, although not preéxisting, is yet 
a deified man, has been taken up into heaven where he is 
now reigning, and consequently must be worshipped. This 
belief he seems to have based upon such passages as John 
ut: 13; “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that 
came down from heaven, the Son of man which is in 
heaven ;” John v1: 38, 46; “I came down from heaven, not 
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me;” 
“Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is 
of God, he hath seen the Father ; » all which he interpreted 
as meaning that Christ had risen repeatedly to heaven to 
receive divine illumination and guidance, and had come 
down again to earth to impart them to his followers. So 
strenuously, indeed, did Socinus insist upon the worship of 
Christ, that this doctrine led, in 1584, to an open rupture 
between himself and the Polish Unitarians, and created the 
* two parties of “ worshippers ” (adorantes), and ‘ non-WOle 
shippers.” 

Perhaps I cannot better point out the leading doctrines of 
this peculiar theology, than by a few quotations from one of 
the two Polish Catechisms ; both of which have an interest 


- 1Bishop of Antioch in 260. 2 Neander’s Hist. 1: 601. 


184 


for us as being, so far as I know, the only official creeds 
or confessions which Unitarianism has ever given to the 
world. In 1574, a catechism was published in Cracow, 
styled, “Catechism and Oonfession of the Congregations 
gathered in Poland in the name of Jesus Christ, our cruci- 
fied and risen Lord.” In 1605, after the Polish Unitarians 
had become Socinian, appeared in Racow, under the 
auspices of Socinus himself, the “ Racovian Catechism,” 
arranged under these eight heads. JI. Scripture. JI. Way 
of Salvation. III. Knowledge of God. IV. Knowledge 
of Christ. V. Prophetic Office of Christ. VI. Kingly 
Office of Christ. VII. Priestly Office of Christ. VIII. 
Church of Christ. Some of the questions and answers, 
very freely translated from the Cracovian Catechism, are as 
follows :4 

“Whence do we learn the Christian religion?” “From 
the Sacred Writings; especially the New Testament.” 
“Are there any Sacred Writings except the New Testa- 
ment?” ‘There are; the Old Testament; but the truth of 
the Christian religion is contained only in the New, and 
that only demands our faith.”? “Do you recognize, beside 
the human nature of Christ, also a divine?” “Not if we 
are to understand by divine the same essence as God’s.’? 
“Who is Christ?” “The only-begotten Son of God, who 
by divine power has become God, and has received all 
power in heaven and earth.”* ‘As Christ has received 
divine power, he must receive divine honor.” “In what 
does divine honor consist?” “In adoring him, and receiy- 
ing his aid.”° “Is the Holy Spirit ever called God?” 


—— —— 


1See Gieseler, rv: 367, n.; Winer’s Confessions of Christendom. 
?Winer, 45. ®64. *Notin 1st edition. 565. 


185 


“Never.” “Is it a person?” “No. Since the Holy Spirit 
is in God; and God is never said to be in the Holy Spirit, it 
plainly is not a person.” “ Was Adam originally good?” 
“ No! else he would not have sinned.”* “ What followed 
from Adam’s fall?” ‘Death (for the whole race), but not 
corruption, nor loss of free-will.”2 “ What shall we say of 
Christ's person?” “That he was by nature a true man, 
‘and when on earth was mortal, but is now immortal.” 
‘Was he a common man?” “No! he was not pure man, 
but was conceived of the Virgin, having no father but 
God.2? “Should infants be baptized?” “No, there is no 
authority for it in Seripture.”* “What is the object of the 
Lord’s Supper?” “Some call it a sacrifice; some a sacra- 
ment; some say it is for remission of sins; it is really an 
institution to commemorate his death.”® ‘ How do we com- 
memorate his death?” “By giving thanks to Christ, for 
having shed his blood through ineffable love to us.”® 
The Unitarianism of to-day would hardly recognize itself 
in these remarkable doctrines. Indeed, it 1s always singular 
to see how reluctantly even professed rationalism breaks 
with venerated notions. Socinus, declaring that Christ 
“became God” and must be worshipped, Servetus, claiming 
that Christ is God assuming visible form, and defending 
against Orthodoxy Christ’s divinity, Arius, calling Christ 
—* “perfect God,” would not in these days be counted danger- 


ous heretics. Yet Orthodoxy was quite right in its suspl- 
The spirit of Protestant rationalism 


cions and its fears. 
7 ere the stammering 


was there, and these crude dogmas W 


1 Winer, 84. 795. %117. 4938, 5264. 264. 


186 


accents in which the infant heresy was proclaiming its 
faith. 

To all appearance, this special form of heresy was stifled 
at its birth ; for Socinianism, banished from Poland half a 
century after its founder’s death, has had no recognized 
existence since that day, except, under a modified form, in 
Transylvania.’ Yet. it has not died, nor was its influence 
limited to Poland. Bayle, writing in 1700 of Socinus and 
his work, said “The sect was driven from Poland in 1658, 
and has much fallen off in visible estate; but no one’ denies 
that it has invisibly greatly multiplied, and is growing day 
by day. Indeed, in the present condition of things, many 
think that Europe must not be surprised, if only a few 
princes should adopt it, or even remove its political disabili- 
ties, to find herself Socinian very soon. Against its pro- 
gress can only be mentioned the fact that it disapproves of 
war, and forbids its followers to hold civil office?” 

Bayle’s prophecy has hardly been fulfilled; perhaps 
because the “few princes” were not forthcoming, perhaps 
because this hostility to war and to civil affairs told too 
severely against the young faith. Socinianism, in its origi- 
nal form, no more exists to-day than does Arianism, or 
Athanasianism. Yet it has its legitimate successors, some 
of which we are now to notice. 

By a singular historical caprice, the next name to be men- 
tioned in this connection, is of one who had hardly more 
leaning towards Unitarianism than had Calvin or Luther, 
who dissented from Orthodoxy on a wholly different issue, 


yet on whom an unkind fate has laid the burden of Socinian 


1Gieseler, Iv: 370. ?Bayle’s Dict. p. 2609. 


Sa 


187 


error, and who, in spite of himself, has to be enumerated 
among the fathers of our liberal faith. The name by which 
the early Unitarians of America were known, was Armin- 
jan; and to many intelligent minds to-day, Arminianism 
and Socinianism are quite indistinguishable terms. Let us 
do them both the justice of seeing in what the true con- 
nection between them lies. 

Arminius! was the son of a Dutch cutler, received his 
education partly in Leyden, partly in Geneva, where he was 
well taught in the doctrines of Calvinism, and was at first 
settled as a pastor in Amsterdam, in 1588, at a time when 
Holland was almost equally divided between Lutheranism 
and Calvinism. The point in controversy between the two 
churches at that time, and just then coming to open issue, 
was the doctrine of Predestination. Between the two 
reformers themselves, there would seem to have been slight 
room for difference in this doctrine; as Luther said in criti- 
cising Erasmus, “The human will is like a beast of burden. 


Tf God mounts it, it works and goes as God wills; if Satan 
Nor can it 


‘] 
i. 


‘mounts it, it works and goes as Satan wills. 
choose the rider it would prefer, or betake itself to him, but 
it is the riders who contend for its possession.” “ God fore- 
knows nothing subject to contingencies, but he foresees, 


foreordains, and accomplishes all things by an unchanging, 


eternal and efficacious will.”’ As between their followers, 


the Lutherans held that each soul was predestined 


however, 
on the ground that God foresaw 


to happiness or misery, 
that it would deserve the one fate or the other ; 
following Augustine more closely, regarded 


while 


the Calvinists, 


11560-1609. 2 Quoted by Lecky, f: 385. 


188 


Predestination, whether to happiness or misery, as a purely 
arbitrary act on God’s part, unconditioned by anything in 
the soul itself. 

Arminius, who was called upon to take the prominent 
place in this dispute, and to throw the weight of his rare 
learning and eloquence on the side of Calvinism, found him- 
self, to his own great surprise} unable to do so, and ended 
by accepting the opinions he was expected to refute. His 
views do not seem to have been, at first, very outspoken; as 
in 1604 he was made professor in the University of Leyden, 
and two years afterwards its rector; but his coming to the 
University was the signal for a renewal of the strife, and 
after passing through one of the bitterest controversies of 
even that bitter and controversial age, he finally -proposed, 
and left behind him at his death in 1609, the series of doc- 
trines which, with slight modifications by his followers, have 
since borne his name. — . 

The tenor of these doctrines, which concern themselves 
almost exclusively with what seemed to the angry disputants 
the whole of Christianity, the question of Predestination, 
can be best judged by these brief extracts from Arminius’s 
“Declaration of Sentiments,” published the year before his 
death. “God decreed to save and damn particular persons 
because he knew from all eternity who would believe and 
persevere, and who would not believe and persevere.” ‘In 
his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable of and by 
himself either to think, will, or to do what is good; it is 
necessary for him to be regenerated by God in’ Christ, 
through thé Holy Spirit.” On this point, especially as it 


1Comp. McClin. and Strong’s, Bib. Cyclopedia, 1: 414. 


- 


139 


relates to Free Will and Grace, Arminius showed singular 
anxiety that his Orthodoxy should be understood. “ Grace 
is essential,” he declared; “I ascribe to Grace the begin- 
ning, continuation and consummation of all good.”? His 
nearest approach to heresy was in the doctrine of Christ, in 
regard to which he was very sensitive, having been made 
the object, as he said, of “ notorious calumnies.” “ Christ is 
truly God,” according to Arminius, yet is not “ underived,” 
or “absolute God;” if that be the exact shade of Deity 
which Orthodoxy expresses by “ autotheos.” If the Son is 
in strict sense autotheos, he is the Father. “The ancient 
Church” he insisted, has always taught that “the Son has 
his Deity from the Father by eternal generation ;” in other 
words, is subordinate to the Father? “To be Son and to 
be God are at perfect agreement.”* After announcing his 
acceptance of Calvin’s doctrine “that Christ’s merits are the 
sole cause for which God pardons sins,’ he returns once 
more to the question of Christ’s nature, and says, “ You 
know with what deep fear, and with what conscientious 


solicitude I. treat that sublime doctrine of a Trinity of Per- 


sons.” “God is from eternity. The Father is from no 


one. The Son is from the Father.”° 

This very mild departure from Orthodoxy, which to us 
seems so trivial and so wearisome, was sufficient to keep the 
States of Holland in furious agitation for ten years after 
 eminius. At the Synod of Dort, held 
1618-19, which, like some of the councils of earlier and 


holier ages, is charged with having been so made up that its 


1Writings of Arminius, Nicholls, 1: 248, 252, 3. *D- 958. *p. 261. 
#p. 264. © Apology against thirty-one Defamatory Articles, p- 343. 
* ge 


190 


decision was secure in advance, Calvinism was proclaimed 
the doctrine of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, 
and three hundred of the Arminian or Remonstrant clergy 
were expelled from the country! A few years later, under 
more favorable political conditions, the exiles returned; and 
since that time Arminianism has been fully tolerated in Hol- 
land, beside going abroad to temper the rigor of Calvinism 
in other lands. It is -to- day the doctrine of the entire 
Methodist church, beside having a large following in the 
Church of England, and among the Lutherans in Germany.? 

It is quite clear from the above account that, in its primi- 
tive form, Arminianism had as little connection as possible 
with Socinianism, either in its dogmas, or in its spirit. Yet 
one heresy makes another easy. As a simple matter of 
fact, the Arminian clergy of Holland, though dwindling 
in numbers, are tending constantly to greater freedom of 
thought on all religious themes, and are known now to 
reject all creeds and confessions, and to hold very advanced 
views on Scripture interpretation, the Trinity and the Sacra- 
ments. In many sects, Arminianism has proved the step-. 
ping stone to a larger liber ty and broader faith. 

One point is still to be touched upon before my subject is 
complete. I have shown at how early a period of the 
Reformation, and under how many different forms, Unita- 
rianism appeared; it remains to be seen how it took the 
form under which we are familiar with ern England and 
America. | 

Socinian doctrines seem to have been somewhat slow in 
reaching England; yet in 1665, Dr. Owen wrote. of them ; 


1 Hase’s History, p. 416. 2 McClintock and Strong, 1: 417. ®Cham- 
bers’ Encyc. ; Gieseler, Iv: 513. 


ToL 


“the evil is at the door; there is not a city, a town, scarce 
a village in England wherein some of this poison is not 
poured forth.” The assertion of another writer, in 1705, 
‘that there were “troops of Unitarian and Socinian writers 
and not one dissenter among them,” would indicate that the 
dogmatic indifference of the established Church had given 
free entrance to heretical ideas; while Presbyterianism, in 
refusing to commit itself to any doctrinal system, exposed 
itself to the same infection, and prepared the way for the 
avowed Unitarianism of the eighteenth century.’ 

The formal appearance of what had been so long secretly 
approaching, was simple and uneventful in the extreme. In 
1774, Dr. Lindsey, who had resigned a charge in the 
Church of England, became pastor of a Unitarian Congrega- 
tion in Essex Street, London; and thus the Unitarian move- 
ment, in so far as any single incident constituted its begin- 
ning, was initiated. A still more important apostle it 
found, however, in Joseph Priestley, who, in 1755, had 
become pastor of a small dissenting congregation in Suffolk, 
and was already conspicuous as a champion of humanitarian 
theology. Priestley was born in 1733, and had been educa- 
ted as a Calvinist, but before he was nineteen claimed to be 
“ypather a believer in the doctrines of Arminius,” adding 
however, “I had by no means rejected the Doctrine of the 
Trinity, or that of the Atonement.”? At about the same 
time he was refused admission to a Calvinist communion, 
e that “all the human race were 
ains of hell forever, on 


8 After entering the 


because he could not agre 
liable to the wrath of God and the p 
account of the sin of Adam only.” 


-1Chambers’ Encyc. Art: ‘¢Unitarians.” %Chamb. Encyc. 3 Ware’s 


«« Priestley’s Views,” Pp. VII. 


192 


ministry, his views took, as has been said, a distinctively 
humanitarian form, although, at the same time, he retained 
positive belief in the New Testament miracles, as the cre- 
dentials of Christ’s mission. Starting with the assumption 
that the Bible is a divine revelation, and rejecting carefully 
what seemed to him merely ecclesiastical interpretations of 
Bible passages, he rejected Trinity and Atonement as 
unscriptural, and held that Christ himself claimed to be 
man and nothing more. 

Priestley’s theology shows but little spiritual depth, and 
his highest distinction was won rather in science than 
in religion ; yet his open advocacy of Unitarian views, and 
the respectful hearing which he won for them, while they 
were still hated and condemned, and while bringing upon 
himself bitter obloquy and persecution as well as loss 
of scientific preferment, entitle him to a high place among 
the leaders of our faith. His career, as is well known, was 
a troubled one, and shows that the days of Protestant per- 
secution, which began with Luther and Calvin, were not yet 
wholly past. Like Socinus before him, he lost his books, 
manuscripts and philosophical instruments, at the hands of a 
religious mob; and finally, through the combined influence 
of political and theologic hatred, he was virtually banished 
from his native land. In 1792, he removed to America, 
where he was received with great respect, and where he 
lived long enough to add fresh stimulus to the young Unita- 
rianism which was just bursting the bonds of New England 
Episcopacy and Puritanism. 


Unitarianism in America, as in England, sprang from 


*Comp. Chamb. Ency. “ Priestley.” 


193 


several roots. In 1787, the oldest Episcopal Church in New 
England, King’s Chapel in Boston, erased from its Prayer 
Book and Articles, all Trinitarian Confessions, and be- 
came, under James Freeman, the first Unitarian church in 
America. It retains the Liturgical service to this day. In 
a letter to Dr. Lindsey in London, whose withdrawal from 
the established church had occurred but a few years before, 
Freeman wrote that “there was only one minister in New 
England who openly preached the “Socinian Scheme,” 
although there were many churches in which the worship 
was strictly Unitarian, and some of New England’s most 
eminent laymen openly avowed that ereed.”' In 1801, the 
oldest Puritan church in New England or America, the 
original church of the Mayflower, established in Plymouth 
‘in 1620, declared itself, by the vote of a large majority, in 
sympathy with the new liberal movement, and assumed the 
Unitarian name. Indeed, its heresy was prepared for it in 
advance ; for so simple had been the terms of the Covenant 
adopted by the early colonists, that not a letter had to be 
changed in taking the Unitarian position. The Church uses 
to-day the identical statement of faith drawn up by its Pil 
grim founders. Still earlier than this, in 1786, this society 
had withdrawn, on the ground of its Arminian faith, from 
the First Parish of Worcester, and was ready among the first 
to take part in the schismatic movement which could not be 
long delayed. 

Protestant Orthodoxy had learned little from the past. 
Tt still honestly supposed itself to have a church and dog- 


matic system of its own, any departure from which was 


1Index, Feb. 15, 1873. 


194 


heresy ; and therefore, instead of welcoming the new theo- 
logical movement, it forced it into the position of dissent. 
About the year 1815, the new views had spread so rapidly, 
and the Orthodox opposition to them had become go deter- 
mined that no alternative remained but for the congregations 
which had taken independent position, to separate formally 
from their sister churches, and call themselves by a dis- 
tinctive name. The spread of the movement through the 
State of Massachusetts was instantaneous ; and the lofty 
eloquence and noble humanity of Channing and other early 
leaders of the cause, left the question no longer in doubt. 
whether Unitarianism had a place in the Protestant church. 
It is no part of my purpose to defend the rights of Unita- 
rianism, yet I trust that the foregoing statement has shown 
this simple fact ; that Unitarianism stands on precisely the 
some footing with the other heretical bodies of Protestant- 
ism, that, with an origin quite as ancient, and an ancestry 
quite as noble, it is simply carrying into remoter realms of 
Christian truth, that independent exercise of human reason, 
that spirit of rationalism, without which Protestantism itself 


could have had no being. 


LECTURE X. 


APRIL 26, 1874. 


RELIGION AND DOGMA. 


Tuk course of lectures now closing, in directly answering 
one question, has aided indirectly, I trust, in answering 
another. If it has clearly traced the development of Chris- 
tian doctrines from the beginning, it has helped us to 
determine in what relation Christian doctrine in general 
stands to the Christian religion. As we are now for the 
first time in a position to consider this point, 1 invite you 
this evening to take one more glance with me over the 
ground which weahave traversed, that we may see to what 
conclusions we are brought. What relation do the doc- 
trines of Christianity hold to Christianity itself? 

The point from which we started, you will perhaps 
remember, was this; that the Scriptures themselves contain 
two distinct conceptions of Christ’s nature. While the first 
three Gospels present Christ as simply the Jewish Messiah, 
and ascribe to him purely human attributes, the Fourth 
Gospel and Paul’s Epistles present him as a preéxistent and 
spiritual being, with certain divine attributes, and standing 
in peculiar relation to God. These two conceptions, which 
divided the Christian community before the Scriptures were 


written, introduced naturally an element of disunion into 


196 


all the early churches; and we accordingly find in the 
Christian writings of the first three centuries, the most con- 
flicting views concerning the nature of Christ. On the one - 
hand, are writers like Justin Martyr, Ireneeus and Tertul- 
lian, who carry Paul’s thought to much greater lengths, con- 
sider Christ a subordinate deity, and find much fault with 
those who call him “a mere man”; on the other hand, 
writers like Theophilus Bishop of Antioch, and Paul of 
Samosata, who reproduce the primitive idea of Christ held 
by the Apostles at Jerusalem, insist that Jesus was born 
human, even if he became afterwards divine, and charge 
their opponents, when calling Christ God, with making two 
gods. How to call Christ man, on the one hand, without 
robbing him of all spiritual functions and degrading him to 
the mere office of a Jewish Messiah, how to call him divine, 
on the other hand, without making two gods, was the main 
religious problem of the first three centuries. To aid this 
controversy, or complicate it, came in certain phrases and 
conceptions, from Oriental and Greek philosophy, concern- 
ing the “ Word” or “ Logos” as emanating eternally from 
God; and somewhat later, the Greek idea of a threefold per- 
sonality in the divine nature, which when once suggested, 
took strong hold of the Christian imagination, and assumed 
Yery different forms at the hands of a Tertullian, an Origen 
and a Sabellins. | 

The first mention of a trinity in the divine nature, or of 
any threefold conception in connection with Deity, we 
found, just at the end of the second century, in the writings 
of Tertullian. Although the idea of Christ as in some 
sense a God, had been for some time familiar, yet none of 
the writers of that period seem to have thought of a third 


; 197 


_ divine element, until the idea was suggested by Tertullian to 
meet an obvious difficulty. If Christ was a God, there was 
danger, of course, of either identifying him with the abso- 
lute God, and so losing sight of Christ’s personality ; or of 
‘so separating the two Gods as to fall into polytheism. 
Both these results actually followed ; and, whether influenced 
by this danger or not, it was in answer to a writer who 
spoke of “God himself as born of the Virgin,” that Tertul- 
lian, unprepared for so gross a doctrine, first broached the 
conception of a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who consti- 
tute what he calls a “unity distributed into a trinity.” 
These chance words of Tertullian, on which he very briefly 
dwelt, and to which he gave no complete or systematic 
form, proved to be the first expression of a theory which, 
under many modifications, and after prolonged controversy, 
was finally adopted as the doctrine of Christendom concern- 
ing the relation of Christ to God. 

The settlement of the doctrine was reached, and its first 
official statement made, as we have seen, by a series of 
“Church Councils, held between the years 325 and 451. 
The steps toward this end, were the following :— 

In 325, the First General Council was called at Nice to 
determine the questions which arose out of the Arian strife. 
In opposition to Arius, who, while calling Christ God, had 
yet declared him not begotten out of the substance of the 
Father, but created by the Father, the Council of Nice pro- 
nounced the Son consubstantial and. coeternal with the 
Father; but propounded no doctrine as to the relation of 
the Holy Spirit to God, or as to the exact nature of Christ. 
Next came the Second General Council, at Constantinople, 
in 381, at which, in consequence of controversies which had 

26 


19s 


sprung out of the decisions at Nice, it was further declared 
that the Holy Spirit is co-equal with the Father and the 
Son. But still one important and very troublesome point 
had been left undecided by both Nice and Constantinople ; 
the relation between the human and divine natures in Christ 
himself. If in being God, Christ ceased to be man, that is, 
if his human nature was lost in the divine, then it was the 
Infinite God who was born, suffered, and died. If Christ 
was both God and man, then were there not two Christs ? 
After another century of angry controversy, and after two 
successive councils, in one of which the doctrine of two 
natures in Christ was pronounced heresy under the name 
of Nestorianism, in the other of which the doctrine of one 
nature in Christ was pronounced heresy under the name of 
Eutychianism, it was finally decided at the Fourth General 
Council, at Chalcedon, in 451, that although each of these 
separate doctrines is false, yet both together are true; in 
other words, that Christ, although not two beings, nor yet 
one, is both two and one; that he has two natures in one 
person. 

These doctrines concerning Christ, of course, although 
the most important were by no means the only ones in 
controversy during those early centuries. On the contrary, 
each Christian dogma was to be found in that period in 
the process of formation. Prominent among these, and the 
only other doctrine to which I called your attention, was 
that relating to human nature. As in regard to the nature 
of Christ we found, in the pages of the early Fathers, the 
most varied and conflicting views, so in regard to. the 
nature of man. That the human race had been in some 


way corrupted by Adam’s fall, was generally granted ; but 


¥gg 


how it was corrupted, or what share, if any, the race in gen- 

eral had in Adam’s guilt, was left undecided until the fifth 

century, when the whole question was brought to an issue 

by the monk Pelagius, who declared, as most of the Fathers 

liad done before him, that Adam’s sin acted upon the race 

only as a bad example, and that every man can be just as 

good or just as bad as he chooses. Whether this doctrine, 

even then, would have been pronounced heresy, is more 

than doubtful, had it not been for the potent influence, just 
at this juncture, of Augustine; whose Manichwan training 
and supreme belief in the supernatural efficacy of the 
Church, led him to frame out of Paul’s language, and out of 
the old conceptions, the doctrine of man’s natural depravity, 
and entire inability to escape from sin, except through God’s 
unmerited grace, working through the miraculous agency of 
the Church. In the year 418, as we have seen, the Council 
of Carthage adopted the Augustinian theory of Total 
Depravity, Free Grace, and Predestination, and pronounced 
the opposite doctrines, held up to that time by most of the 
prominent Christian teachers, heretical. 

From these single instances of the formation of Christian 
doctrine, we learned the process by which all Christian doc- 
trine has been formed. What was true of these, was equally 
true of every other dogma which Christendom confesses. 
No single dogma being found, as such, in the primitive 
Scriptures, each one in turn has waited to be moulded by 
religious controversy, and to receive its final form at the 
hands of an ecclesiastical Council. Christian doctrines are 
simply the various decisions of these Councils called from 


time to time to declare which of two conflicting opimions, 


200 


held by different Church teachers, was right, and which 
wrong. | 

The next question, therefore, which: we had to consider, 
was this; what were these Councils which, by a mere vote, 
determined forever the faith of Christendom ? Councils, we 
found, were simply a gathering of bishops representing 
what called itself the Catholic Church. Their sole authority 
lay in their being the mouth-piece of the Church. 

The question was pushed still further back, therefore. 
There is a Catholic Church, it seems. What is it? Whence ’ 
did it come? When begin to exist? The decrees of Nice, 
Constantinople, Chalcedon, Carthage, are entitled to respect, 
only as this Catholic Church can prove its claim to authority 
and its right to speak for Christendom. What then, and 
whence, is the Catholic Church? Not. an_ institution 
founded by Jesus, certainly ; as a single glance at the Scrip- 
tures proved to us. Not part of primitive Christianity, 
therefore. Not founded by the Apostles either: there were 
churches in apostolic times, but no Church. As late as the 
end of the first century, each congregation made and 
unmade its own officers, and bishops as distinct from elders 
were still unknown. Hardly before the third century did 
we find mention of “the one only baptism of the one 
Church.” Even then its organization was not complete, 
and many essential features were lacking. At the time of 
the early Councils, no one bishop was supreme above 
the rest. Not until the fifth century did the Bishop of 
Rome claim precedence among his fellows. Not before the 
seventh century was there a Pope. Not until the nine- 


teenth century, was there an infallible head of the infallible 
Church. 


ee ee a, a 


+ 


201 


The Church came gradually into being, therefore. It was 
eighteen hundred and seventy years in reaching its growth. 
It camé into being expressly to meet the demand for infalli- 
bility. The Scriptures themselves admitting of various 
interpretations, and leaving many grave questions in doubt, 
unity of faith was impossible without some infallible inter- 
preter of Scripture, and some supreme authority to estab- 
lish the articles of faith. If there must be doctrines, there 


must be something to sanction doctrines. Hence the 


‘Church; growing constantly more compact as necessity 


required ; assuming step by step a larger authority, as that 
authority was needed. If it can be said, as it certainly may, 


that the necessities of dogma created the Church, it must 


also be said that the Church alone creates and sanctions 


dogma. 


Doctrinal Christianity, therefore, culminates in the Catho- 
lic Church. Without that Church, as we have seen, there 
would be no Christian doctrines. Doctrines are the voice 
of the Church. The two cannot be separated. Insist upon 
havipg doctrines, and you must have the Catholie Church 5 
deny the authority of the Catholic Church, and you remove 
the basis of all doctrine. _You cannot discriminate between 
the two, and hold to the one while you disown the other. 
You cannot accept the Church and discard its doctrines; no 
more can you retain the doctrines while you renounce the 
Church. Whatever beliefs you retain on leaving the 
Church are simply your individual opinions: they are no 
longer established dogmas. 

This is a point which the Protestant reformers failed .to 


see. They thought they could go out of the Church, deny 


the authority of the Pope, and yet retain the Trinity, 


202 


Incarnation, and Atonement, as binding doctrines. But 


this could not be. The doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, 
and Atonement, rest on precisely the same authority as does 
the doctrine of the supremacy of the Pope; that is upon 
decrees of Catholic Councils. To renounce the supremacy 
of the Pope, therefore, is to renounce the authority on 
which all doctrines rest, and by which alone doctrinal unity 
is possible. To leave the Church was to leave unity of 
faith, and all dogmatic authority behind. To leave the 
Church and carry off its dogmas with them, was at best to 


rob the mansion which they were deserting. 


This is what I meant by saying, in one of my lectures, — 


that Catholicism and Orthodoxy are synonymous and con- 
vertible terms. It is literally so. There can be Catholic 
Orthodoxy; there can be, in the nature of the case, no 
Protestant Orthodoxy. Protestantism is in itself the denial 
of the one authority on which Orthodoxy is based; is itself, 
therefore, the negation of Orthodoxy. Protestantism may 
amuse itself, if it chooses, with claiming an Orthodoxy of its 
own; Protestant sects may amuse themselves, if amusement 
it be, in summoning councils, and chastising rebellious 
churches, and excommunicating heretics; but it is an idle 
pastime, which deceives no one, and carries its absurdity on 
its face. If there be a Protestant Orthodoxy, what is it ? 
If there be a Protestant Church, where is it? TI, at least, 


know of neither the one nor the other. JI know of no creed 


which all Protestantism confesses, I know of no single © 


article of any creed which all Protestant bodies accepts vl 
know of no single Protestant confession which all who 
receive it understand in the same way. 


The name Protestant Orthodoxy, therefore, is a complete 


——— = 


203 


misnomer; and ought, in all candor, to be quietly laid aside. 
Protestantism is heresy. Its very essence is heresy. It is 
rooted in heresy; it is fed by heresy; it bears forever the 
fruits of heresy. Its very function is to initiate heresy, and 
legitimate it as the lawful outgrowth of Christianity. Prot- 
estantism is the authority of the individual soul, as against 
the authority of the Church; and the authority of the soul 
is heresy. Heresy is “choice”; the soul choosing its 
religious belief, and holding it as its own. Behold the end 
of the whole matter ;—the Church against the Soul; the 
Pope against human nature ; Orthodoxy against Heresy. 
All Protestants, then, are heretics. If they are called 
Servetus or Socinus, they are heretics; if they are called 
Luther or Calvin, they are heretics as well. If they deny 
Trinity, Atonement, and Eternal Punishment, they are here- 
tics; if they accept Trinity, Atonement, and Eternal Pun- 
ishment, they are heretics as well; for they can accept them 
only upon the authority of their own reason. In speaking 
of the several parties into which Protestantism at once and 


inevitably fell, I have recognized this fact, and classed them 


“under one head, as so many dissenters from the Orthodox 


faith. On this common ground all Protestant bodies stand 
to-day; the only essential distinction between them being 
that while some frankly accept, others angrily disown, the 
stigma of heresy. 

This brings clearly before us the one remaining question 
which, as I have said, it has been the ulterior purpose of the 
present course to meet. What is the relation between 
Christianity itself and Christian doctrines? As we have 
already seen, if those doctrines are an essential part of 


our faith, if Orthodoxy of belief is a necessary part of 


204 


Christianity, then we must have the Catholie Church. Does 
it not follow then that Catholicism is right and Protestant- 
ism wrong ? 

Certainly, I reply: unless we are prepared for the 
other horn of the dilemma. Let the alternative be stated as 
sharply as possible, for it must be fairly met. Either 
Catholicism is right, or doctrine is not essential to Chris- 
tianity. As true Protestants, of course, our choice is clear. 
We hold Protestantism to be right ; therefore we must con- 
clude that doctrine is not essential to Christianity. There 
can be a pure and true Christian faith without Christian 
doctrines; without any verbal statements, that is, in which 
all are forced to unite. I urge this upon you as the legiti- 
mate meaning of the Protestant Reformation; Doctrine is 
not an essential part of Christianity, else Catholicism is 
right and Protestantism wrong. 

No one will deny that there is a difference between 
religion and doctrine; between spiritual truths on the one 
side and mental belief on the other. No one will deny that 
religion in its purest form can be held without formulating 
any system of belief. Will any one deny that Christianity 
is such a religion? No one pretends that primitive Chris- 
tianity contained any statement of belief. Christianity was 
content to be a religion, without attempting to become a 
belief. The Christian Scriptures presented the new faith, 
and left it, in the form in which it found its first and natural 
utterance; in the words and acts and lives of. its early apos- 
tles. ‘Those words and acts might be variously understood, 
variously felt, variously applied, and might lead to the 
utmost diversity of thought and belief. They did produce 
that diversity, among the immediate followers of Jesus 


205 


themselves. No more vital difference of opinion has ever 
separated the Christian world, than that which separated 
Peter from Paul, or Paul from James. Yet no provision 
was made against this, nor any steps taken against it. The 
primitive Gospel was left to do its legitimate work; to 
inspire the souls of men with high purpose and devout 
aspiration and great longings, and lead them into whatever 
diversity of thought and interpretation it might. 

No one can deny that this is so; else, why is it that when 
Christian doctrines are formed, they are not given us in the 
words of the Scriptures themselves? Why is it that Chris- 
tian doctrines and creeds are formed at all? The putting of 
a single great Christian truth into a doctrine is a confession 
that the Christian Scriptures contain no doctrine. The sim- 
ple fact that no single creed, either from the Catholic or 
from the Protestant side, has ever been drawn bodily from 
the Scriptures, or couched exclusively in Scripture phrases, 
is conclusive proof that doctrine is not part of, and therefore 
not essential to, pure Christianity. Hither Christianity was 
defective at the start, in a most important point, or doctrine 
is not an important part of it, but only a superfluous addi- 
tion. 

Christian doctrine is a superfluous addition to the Chris- 
tian religion. It was an afterthought. When the early 
faith began to bear its legitimate fruits in variety of thought 
and belief, the leaders of the Church became alarmed. The 
unity of Christian faith, the authority of the Church, was 
endangered. That the soul is best employed when it is 
‘following its own convictions, and is safest in making its 
own approaches to God, they could not see. They only felt 
the immediate danger to outward unity. Hence the specific 

27 


206 


dogma, officially uttered, which all must accept. Hence 
the addition to the original faith, of a verbal confession, and 
a command to accept it: At first a smgle doctrine only, to 
meet a single necessity, it became in time a systematic series 
of dogmas, involving a complete extra-biblical Scheme of - 
Salvation. At first the mere vote of a majority of bishops, 
and carrying simply the weight of numbers, doctrine has 
become at last the infallible utterance of a divinely-commis- 
sioned Church: 

Such was the origin of Christian doctrine; an origin 
entirely outside of primitive Christianity, and independent of 
the action of its founders. Christianity itself gives no 
countenance to this treatment of its truths, offers no prepa- 
ration for it, supplies no material for it. Christianity itself 
places every possible obstacle in the way of such treatment. 
Never was a religious faith harder to formulate; never was 
the essence of a religion harder to catch and hold; never 
did specific statements of truth stand in greater need of 
restatement; never did interpretations more imperatively . 
demand to be themselves interpreted. Never was the fine 
spirit of a lofty message more rudely misconceived, than by 
those who sought to imprison the etherial truths of Chris- 
tianity in the soulless phrases of a creed. 

And the endeavor was fruitless after all. Brilliant as 
seemed at first its success, the hour of, reckoning came, and 
the pure religion vindicated itself against all its perversions 
and corruptions. The outburst of the Reformation, and the 
instant falling asunder of Protestantism into a hundred dif- 
ferent faiths, meant that the power of dogma is transient, 
and that there is no permanent religious authority outside 


the soul. For the wise man no experiment need be twice 


207 


tried. For fifteen hundred years, the Christian world tried 
the experiment, under circumstances the most favorable pos- 
sible, of turning Christianity into a creed; of distrusting 
reason and providing an infallible authority for the soul; of 
erasing all theological differences, and effecting unity of 
belief. The experiment failed disastrously. If we are 
wise, we shall accept the failure and not repeat the experi- 
ment. If we are wise, we shall accept the fact and acknowl 
edge its full significance. It means that dogma is no essen- 
tial part of religion. It means, not that this doctrine or 
that is false, but that doctrine as such carries no final 
authority for the soul. It means that Christianity is really, 
what it seemed two thousand years ago, not a verbal system, 
but a religion; and that if it be true religion, it must neces- 
sarily lead us constantly into new and nobler beliefs. 

To this conclusion, therefore, we are brought; a conclu- 
sion which cannot be too succinctly or too simply stated. 
The future of Protestantism, if future it has, must needs be 
one of increasing intellectual differences, and constantly 
multiplying views of spiritual things. The function of 
Protestantism, if function it has, 1s, once for all and with 
pride, to accept this diversity of faith as its essential charac- 
teristic; to forget the terms Orthodox and heretic; to 
devote itself henceforth to the moral elevation of humanity, 


and to growth into an ever larger and diviner truth. 


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91 


A. 


YPHA, its personification of 
ivine attributes, 28. 


doctrine, 46. 
ANISM, 186-190. 


US Views, 188. 
50. 


ulse creed of, 59, 74. 
BURG, Confession of, 136. 
STINE, 88. 

is doctrine of human nature, 95. 


ic: 


.4S, his connection with Paul, 


tment of heretics, 156. 

4 . * 
ee to Ortho- 
141, 202. 


Council of, 71. 


of, 73, 78. 


of, among Docete, 35. 
a Gnostics, 35. 
in Clem. Homilies, 33. 
first three Gospels, 22. 
Fourth Gospel, 26, 29. 


Ireneus, 34. 
Justin Martyr, 31. 


Paul of Samosata,’ 39. 


-Paul’s Epistles, 24. 


ae Sabellius 2 38. 


Tertullian, 36. 


ions of in New Tes- 


INDEX. 


Cuurcn, Carnouic, edict of Theo- 
dosius concerning, 108. 
in time of apostles, 7, 101. 
in time of Augustine, 89, 107. 
in time of Fathers, 103. 
its origin, 100. 
its significance, 114. 
Cuurcn, only one possible, 115. 
Cuurcu,; RoMAN, gradual growth 
of, 109,°110;.118. 
CLEMENTINE HoMILIES, 18, 33. 
CONSTANTINE, as head of Nicene 
Council, 48. 
CounciILs, Chalcedon, 71. 
Ephesus (1st), 65. 
Ephesus (2d), 68. 
Nice, 48. 
North African, 94. 
Sirmium, 55. 
CRACOVIAN CATECHISM, 184. 
CYPRIAN, on the Church, 106. 


D. 
DocrET#, 35. 
Doorrinn, not essential to Chris- 
tianity, 204. 
DoNATIST CONTROVERSY, 107. 
Dort, Synod of, 189. 


E. 


EBIONITES, 18. 

ENGLISH CHURCH, 161. 

Epuesus, First Council of, 65. 
Second Council of, 68. 


EUTYCHES, 67. 
G. 
GNostics, 34. 


210 


GosPEL, Fourth, view of Christ in, 
26, 29. 

GOSPELS, first three, view of Christ 
in, 22. 


Hy 


Hoty Spirit, late origin of doc- 
trine of, 57. 
Homoousios, how the term came 
into Nicene Creed, 52. 
its ideal meaning, 56. 
once a heretical term, 54. 
Huss, 121. 


i 


INCARNATION, doctrine of, 63: 
INDULGENCES, 127. 
IRENZUS, 34. 

on Church, 104. 

on human nature, 84. 


J. 


JERUSALEM, Council at, 12. 
JUSTIFICATION BY FaIruH, as the 
basis of Protestantism, 133. 
disputes concerning it among 
Lutherans, 137. 
JUSTIN MARTYR, 31. 
his doctrines concerning human 
nature, 84. 


ie 


Lorp’s SuPPER, disputes concerning 
in Protestant Church, 1388, 149. 
LUTHER, 125. 
against the peasants, 135. 
at Worms, 132. 
dispute with Zwingli, 148. 
excommunication of, 131. 
on the Church, 134. 
theses against indulgences, 129. 
LUTHERAN CHURCH, its confessions, 
—186,-140. 
its divisions, 137. 


M. 


MANICHA&ISM, 91. 
MAN, nature of, 79. 
Paul’s doctrine of, 80. 
views of Fathers concerning, 
82, 85. 
M&ELANCHTHON, 134. 
MEsSIAH, as presented in first three 
Gospels, 23. 
MONOPHYSITE DOCTRINES, 63, 76. 


"aN. 
NESTORIAN CONTROVERSY, 63. 
NESTORIUS, 64. 
Nice, Council of, 48. 
NICENE CREED, 58. 
its character, 57. 


O. 
ORIGEN, 39. 
his views of Church, 105, 110. 
ce Fall, 83. 
oe Trinity, 39. 


ORTHODOXY, equivalent to Catholi- 
cism, 141, 202. 
only one possible, 116. 


Ps 


PautL, at the Council of Jerusalem, 
13. 
character of his conversion, 6. 
his view of Christ, 24. 
parties against him, 15-17. 
PAUL OF SAMOSATA, 39. . 
PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY, 86. 
PELAGIUS, 85. 
his condemnation, 94. 
~** doctrine, 86. 
PERSECUTION, by Lutheran Church, 
140. 
Protestant theory of, 172. 
PERSON, nature, substance; arbi- 
trary distinction between, 75. 


211 


- Puro, his doctrine of the Word, 28. 
PrikstTiey, 191. 
PROTESTANT CHURCH, non-existence 
of, 144. 
PROTESTANTISM, equivalent to here- 
sy, 141, 169, 203. 
its first doctrinal symbol, 137. 


R. 


REFORMATION, beginnings of, 128, 
146. 
in England, 160. 
eéoitaly, 180. 
‘¢ Switzerland, 146. 


moral character of age preced- 


ing, 123. — 
precursors of, 119. 
REFORMED CHURCH, 156. 
ROBBER COUNCIL, 68. 


S. 


SAaBELLIUS, his doctrine of Trinity, 


38. 
SAVONAROLA, 122. 
SERVETUS, 156, 158, 174. 
his religious philosophy, 176. 
Socrnus, Faustus, 181. 
his religious system, 183, 184. 
Lelius, 181. 


Spirit, Hory, late origin of the 


doctrine, 57. 


STEPHEN, cause of his martyrdom, 9. 


SYNERGISM, 138. 


he 
TERTULLIAN, 35. 
on Church, 105. 
‘* human nature, 82, 84. 
“« Trinity, 36, 38. 
THEeEODOsIUvS, edict of, 58, 108. 
THEOPHILUS Of ANTIOCH, 33. 
TRINITY, arbitrary distinctions 
its terms, 75. 
as held by Origen, 39. 
= Sabellius, 38. 
Tertullian, 36. 
first mention of, 36. 
gradual formation of, 58. 
not in Nicene Creed, 56. 


of 


66 


U. 


UNITARIANISM, as held by Servetus, 
176. 
ee Socinus, 
183. 
in America, 192. 
in England, 190. 
its early appearance, 171. 


W. 
Worp, as God, 28, 30. 
in Apocrypha, 28. 
‘¢ Fourth Gospel, 29. 
‘¢ Greek Philosophy, 27. 
Philo’s doctrine of, 28. 
Zoroastrian doctrine of, 28. 
WYCLIFFE, 120. 


Z. 
ZWINGLI, 147, 178. 
his relations with Luther, 148. 


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